So the scenario is this:
If (when) Mike slams the door, no one will be able to hear Lawrence scream

"If (when) Mike slams the door...." Segue to the functionality of the door...

One of my brothers-in-law has experience with building soundproof home theater and studio rooms, and with QuietRock. He says the door is often the biggest sound leak, so he approves of my plan to have a double door. Neither will be lockable to prevent accidents... and both will be heavy solid core doors. We might even put a layer of QuietRock on at least one side of one door. Certainly, sturdy and extensive rubber gaskets will be fitted on both door frames, and special attn paid to seal the floor/door gap.

How will the room be built, concerning all the rubber gaskets etc?
Will there be enough ventilation so the room doesn't overheat, or the reviewer will faunt because of lack of oxygen...?

Just checking

You'll read about all the details, photos of the whole process, before/after measurements/recordings will all be done.

There will be no ventilation except when the door is open. Mostly, no one will be inside when the door is closed. But we'll have oxygen tanks and emergency breath apparatus handy.

Along the same line - ive also purchased some things based on reviews here at spcr... but how do we ensure spcr gets "credit" (if thats the right term) for products we purchase through other stores?
Is it enough to just follow banner links from this website? or is there more to it?

Making the purchase through the links is what helps most. Cookies track your visitation path, so generally, it doesn;t have to be during the same/fist visit -- though that probably ensures the "commission" to us.

Donating before the competition incentive puts a bigger smile on my face to hear about the competition.

I genuinely am excited to see this project happen and once it is done, it will make SPCR *the* place to get the most accurate sound levels of equipment.

Dan

Don't you just hate Paypal?!
I donated my $50 yesterday, i.e. before any 'competition' was announced, based purely on the fact that I've been a long time reader and REALLY appreciate MikeC and Co's passion, knowledge, dedication and experience. However, due to eCheques (or whatever the conversion betweeen UK £ and USA $ is) my contribution won't clear into MikeC's account until 1 May so I'll miss my chance to win some SPCR corporate toys.
Heh, no good deed goes unpunished I suppose

Mike: Let's hope that 2008 SPCR Upgrade Drive Meter isn't actually a logarithmic measurement of the funds like the scale suggests.
That'd be mean

Dan

After being sceptical about the cost of SPCR's upgrades, I have considered all of the reviews I have read that have lead me to buy lots of stuff and ended up with a couple of super quiet PC's I have donated some money.

After all, SPCR can do whatever they like with my money, they deserve it and will continue to make more excelent reviews.


Andy

Actually the suggestion is that the room is getting quieter. Most dB meters have 0 as the max on the right, with anything above that in red (overload); -70 dB on the extreme left of that meter means 70 dB below 0. It's kind of an audio metaphor. Yeah, geeky, I did say it was hokey...

cd8uk, you're in anyway -- your commitment was noted and recorded.

andyb, thank you for your contribution.

You know, if you really want to provide a big incentive to donate, and not to only donate the $25 minimum, then make each $25 that somebody donates equal an entry in the drawing. That way if Donor A gives $25 and Donor B gave $100, Donor B gets 4 entries in the drawing and Donor A only gets one. That makes it more fair for the guys that donated more money, plus it creates a greater incentive to give more than the minimum to be entered.

OK, done. This will be detailed later... must.... get... to... bed... before.... I... zzzzzzzzzzz

After one week, 38 individuals have contributed a total of $1878, and the largest single contribution was $200 thus far. One supplier has offered a discount of $600, so in essence, the total raised is $2478, which is a quarter of the way to our goal. If we can maintain the current average rate of $268/day, we'll reach our goal in 30 more days. If more people contribute, and/or the average contribution size increases, we'll get there sooner.

Much thanks to all who contributed so far!!!

To confirm the change in the draw entry rule suggested by AZBrandon last night:

Our corporate sponsors have generously stepped up to the plate and offered prizes with a net value of thousands of dollars for supporters of the Make SPCR Better in 2008 project. Each $25 contribution in the period 16 April to 30 April will give you one entry into a free draw to win a range of products from Corsair, Antec, Seasonic, AMD, Enermax, Intel and others. There are well over a dozen prizes, most valued at $50~300. You have one week to enter this draw. Contribute today!

As a poor man, I am only able to make a $25 donation. I would like to have donated more, but every little helps.

I keep a close eye on things going on at SPCR, even though I don't really post on these forums much. It is a great source of reliable information for many and anything to make that better has got to be worth it. I have personally made many recommendations to fellow computer builders based on your data.

Geez was that Paypal site slow,
anyway as you guys are helping me alot to make some decision about my new pc I will be building sometime soon and have therefore rid me of a lot of headaches about how to know silent components I felt contributing was a good thing.
I will harass you with loads of questions soon

Kobold

Ditto.

SPCR can attribute the following sales to great reviews:
2x Corsair HX620
1x Antec NSK2480
manyx Scythe fans and heatsinks
...

In fact, this fund drive just encouraged me to sign up for the forum (which I've been stalking for the better part of a year). I can't tell you the number of times I've used links to SPCR in helping people piece together system on other forums.

Same here. I think almost all components are in the recommended list, but I haven't checked.

I do read a lot of reviews on other sites but mostly for the performance results. For noise, which is a priority in my purchases, I have checked the reviews here (and ofcourse the forum, which is almost equally as valuable).

ASUS M2N32-SLI (heatpipes become increasingly popular on motherboards)
AMD Athlon 64 X2 5200+ 65W (instead of a more powerful but hotter CPU - I realise this isn't exactly what AMD hoped for, because it's a lot cheaper than the more powerful CPU's)
Thermalright 120-Ultra Extreme
Scythe S-flex E (2x) undervolted
Zalman Reserator 2 (cooling video card)
Antec P182
Seasonic S12-650+ (way overkill, but it was my first silent purchase based on the review here)
Samsung Spinpoint T HD321KJ (the most quiet at the time) 2x

So what your saying is that

"Neither snow, nor rain, nor heat, nor gloom of night will stay these courageous reviewers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds"
- (with appologies to Herodotus)

Damn you! Now, you're tempting me to send my money in ahead of my original intentions! That's just mean!

I just want to reiterate this to the folks who think $25 or less isn't much: Think again! Those smaller amounts add up real fast!

I'm also glad to see that people found my personal hardware list to be a good reminder of the help SPCR has provided them.

I already gain a lot of useful information from this site and it's forum members and this upgrade sounds like it will make the experience even more valuable. The money I save by avoiding ineffective products is probably worth more than my donation.

Good luck with the upgrade, Mike, and keep that donation meter up to date. I'm sure I can put a little more in the pot if it's needed and I've already started badgering my fellow silent PC enthusiast friends. A lot of them visit here regularly now after I introduced them to the site.

Many thanks for all the years of hard work Mike (and everyone else involved)! My first quiet computer with spcr components lasted 5 years and I remember you chiming in on it back in the day. The newest one is again built using spcr recommendations and I hope lasts at least another 5 years!

FYI, the fund drive stats were updated in the original post:



What we really need are big contributors to step up and toss in some good coin. Yes, every little bit counts, and this is not to diss anyone for the size of their contributions, but... it will take 247 $25 contributions to reach $10,000 and just 62 $100 contributions... or 31 $200 contributions.

Anyway... some quotes on the acoustic wedges for the interior walls of the chamber are coming in. It looks like my estimate was on the low side -- the first quote is for >$6500 to line the 5 sides. Will have to keep hunting for a better deal.

One would think the nationalities of contributors should more or less reflect geo-stats on visitors to SPCR, but this is not exactly the case. Some trends:

UK visitors comprise some 10% of SPCR traffic, yet over 15% of contributors have come from the UK!

US visitors comprise 40% of SPCR traffic; US contributors number slightly lower than this.

EU visitors (including UK) comprise 40% of SPCR traffic; EU contributors number a bit higher than this, and not only because of UK contributors.

There have been contributors from many EU countries, as well as Thailand and Australia.

Canada (my home country!) is worst represented: Canadians represent 8% of total SPCR traffic, and yet there have been only two contributors from Canada so far -- this is about 3%.

All this is AFAIK -- not all contributors identify their nationality.

You know what they say about a prophet and his own country !

Those are some interesting numbers, Mike. I'm curious about another number, though. With only 55 people donating, what's the percentage of donators, compared to how many visitors the site gets on a monthly basis? Has it even reached 1%?

I understand times are tough, but if you can afford internet and new computer parts, I think you can afford to donate a few bucks. (Granted, my donation is still forthcoming, but I can say my piece, right? ) I don't think it's unreasonable to get ~250 people to donate $25.

ooh, fancy!

I was going to cry poverty (2 children, 1 1wk old) but I figured $50 is less than what i can spend on thomas the tank engine accessories and it'll make a big contribution to a very valuable resource.

good luck with the quotes/ project and as soon as I have a bit more spare cash I'll donate some more. Now I just have to get home before my wife reads our email

No, it hasn't come even close to 1%. Today, the total is around 60... compared to 170,000 unique visitors last month, or 5700/day. OK, it's been 11 days... during which there were ~63,000 visitors. 60 = 0.1% I consider all contributors truly special: You are in the top 99.9% percentile of SPCR users.

FYI, the original post has been updated:

0.1% is quite small, I'm sure we can do better guys!

Might have to see if I can scrape together another donation.

(By the way, I think the high number of UK donors might have something to do with the exchange rate. I don't know what the other currencies are like, but it's still about $2 to the pound. )