Thx. I used to be a fairly productive contributor, but now I'm somewhat of a cheap shot artist. I'm going to lay low in the water cooling forum for a while and expand my horizons.

However, I've recently added the highly sought after Real Doosey Pinnaculum Mark II Self Calibrating Precision Sound Level Meter to my test bench. It was recently appraised on Antiques Roadshow at over 4 figures.


My trusty Real Doosey Pinnaculum Mark II SPL Meter.

No prob, I'll just continue enjoying your input over at XS...

where did you find that meter?

I just copied that photo from ebay. The only competent sound readings I've seen on spcr where made with a B&K 2260 sound level meter by aviavi in the following post -
http://forums.silentpcreview.com/viewto ... ht=#253715

I've got several Papst 4412F/2GLL (1200rpm, 70m^3/h, 18 EUR each), and i have settled on them, cause they are very quiet, but the best thing about them is their stellar build quality. You can have them running for years and they won't become louder. They are specified for 80000 hours...

I also have a 4412 F/2 GL which I'm using in a Seasonic Super Tornado 400w, and it's a really good fan. As someone else mentioned, its drop in noise output is quite linear in relation to its drop in voltage. I would characterize the sound at low voltage (5-7v) as a bit rough, but it's still really quiet. Also, I can't really say anything about their build quality since I've never dropped mine or anything like that, but these fans are really heavy. Definitely the heaviest fans I've ever used. Their only downfall is that they're expensive. I bought a from Silicon Acoustics a couple years ago, and I think it was around $24 . It's a great fan, not perfect due to it's rough noise quality, but I still like it a lot.

Elaboration the noise quality: I can't really tell you what it sounds like at 12V because I never run it at 12V. At 5-7V, though, it sounds kind of bassy, lower than any fan I've used. The roughness that I refer to isn't really a clicking, it's just kind of a low unevenness. It's hard to describe, but it's definitely passable.

I'm also using and appreciating a Papst 4412 F/2GL (Hungarian version with the blue and silver label) on an XP-120 at 6-11V. At 6V (~780 rpm), where it is most of the time, it's sound is a negligible addition to the other quiet fans in my sig system. At that low load level, the loudest, if you could call it "loud," is the Yate Loon in the early S12-430 PSU at 720 rpm. Under high sustained load the Papst ramps up slowly (using the Abit FanEQ function) to typically ~1200 rpm. It is audible, but only from the whoosh of additional air flow. I haven't noticed any roughness in the Papst noise signature whatsoever, even when load and ambient temp drive it up to ~1400 rpm.

Very nice fan, although it was expensive even when purchased directly from a retail store in the Netherlands. But in the long run, still pretty cheap for quiet performance.

I have a Nexus 120mm running at 8-12V (also with FanEQ) as the case exhaust. I'd say that the two fans are very similar in noise level and quality at comparable speeds.

FYI, Yates are also sold here: http://www.petrastechshop.com/120x25mmfans.html