Thanks for all the nit-picking guys. I'm amazed at all the little details that seem to have been missed.
I'm a little overwhelmed by all of the suggestions and comments... There are so many, I'll probably miss one or two, but I'll try and address as many as possible.
To everyone who recommended a fan that they want examined: We'll do our best, but don't forget about that illustration on the first page. We have a *lot* of fans to look at, so it might be a while.
Those who asked about Noctua, Coolink, and Noiseblocker fans, I believe that we have samples of all of these in the wings... but see the comment in the paragraph above.
An update on the Hypro bearings in the SilenX fan. This information comes directly from SilenX' web site, so I'm hesitant to contradict them outright. I'm 99% certain that the fan is made by Globe, as the logo on the back and the general design is too similar to other Globe fans we have lying around to leave much margin for error. I've added a speculative sentence that sums up my uncertainty.
To all of you who were hoping for a graph, it was originally in the plans, and we may still implement one for future reviews. However, for this first review, it was left out because it's too difficult to produce a graph that is readable. A test graph that we made was really only usable for sorting out rough differences — fine details like noise character get left out because our measurement resolution is too coarse. Given the difficulty of getting accurate measurements, I can't see this changing, even with better instrumentation. The fact is that there's a certain range of variation in both noise and airflow during measurement, so precise measurements are simply not possible.
A graph of the best fans at 10 CFM would be a joke. IIRC, something like 9 of the fans would be clustered at <18
[email protected], which doesn't make for a usable graph. And, because the Scythe was measured at a higher ambient noise level, the fan that
sounded second best would end up looking very bad. All in all, I felt that leaving the graph out would end up being more useful, since the true distinctions are in the subjective results, not the measurements.