You need it all. I'm usually screwing around on an engine dyno, and regular det cans just are not loud enough for that. I had actually started building a charge amp myself using the same chip as the hf stethescope. Anyhow I have done a lot of screwing around with this and there is a thousand bs write ups out there about building electronic det cans. I have tried most of them, this is far and away better. If you need (not everybody needs or even uses one) an electronic det can, this is better then anything else you can build. I'll try and post some audio of the different sensors and such. But I'm not sure that will show difference. Most of my old det cans, if I could hear them at all, knock sounded like rain on a metal roof, or marbles In a jar, or something like that. With this one it just sounds like knock and that's it, lifters sound like lifters, piston slap sounds like piston slap. Not guessing is good. To me it sounds just like a regular det can (bolt and hose style) just way louder.