There were never any exclusions. In fact, it said..."Anyone can enter to win from the following prizes"

I guess that's what you get when the existing content is just as useful as upcoming content. I bet it takes SPCR a lot longer to get obsolete than other tech sites, since a lot of it is about ideas rather than news.

And since one SPCR review is worth 100 reviews from other sites, I can't wait to see more fans and PSUs and cases reviewed in the new floating chamber! (Eg the NMB-MATs, since they claim ultra-unbelievable specs.)

Most tech site forums are about trolling and corporate PR, no wonder people stopped using them... (Not here of course, save SilenX )

Yeah they could be better, but once you get started it's pretty OK... and I like to think my money is quite safe with them. You also get eBay fraud insurance which is a huge plus!

No offense taken, I just wanted to moan about how unfair it it is for us (=me) .
I'm not the least bit surprised. There has been an income poll on the forums, so I knew that quite many here have very good income. Not that it's surprising. I already knew from the quality of posts, that people here are well educated.

Thanks for clearing this up. I went to PayPal's site this morning and watched "What is PayPal?" demo video. Well it was mostly marketing, but they never mentioned cash transfers, it was all about credit cards. So I was like meh and ditched the whole idea. IBAN transfers have been enough for me so far, but it's good to know, that I can use PayPal, if I want to.

And thanks for ruining my excuse , now I have to appeal to my student status! And to general lack of incentives, namely our tax system. And, I probably should just keep my mouth shut, but status of lifetime patron just ain't as prestigious as it was before the lottery was introduced. Donating money when you have nothing to gain is just bit nobler. Exponentially growing numbers also inflate the status. Please don't ban me .

Don't worry about it. I donated $100 regardless of the lottery, and I didn't qualify for the special patron thing, presumably because the dollar is so weak against the pound.

I just like the idea of a place on the internet which is a centre-of-excellence, rather than the usual centre-of-meh that most other places are when it comes to testing. Given the amount of money I've wasted on poor "quiet" components I see it as an investment too

Really?

Check your email. It's probably just an oversight by me.

EDIT: confirmed, promoted to LP status.

I'm sorry, I just wondered because in many contests "everybody can win" if they live in the US or Canada By the way, I just logged in to PayPal with the intention of doing another small contribution (don't tell my wife ) when I noticed my previous donation was done to mikec@silentpcreview.com instead of donate@silentpcreview.com. Can both be used for the "make-SPCR-even-better-program"?

Yesirree, said the TV evangelist preacher, yoah money's welcome to either pocket.

Seriously, it does go into the same acc. Used only for SPCR stuff.

Original post updated:

Ok, donated another $50. Every bit helps

unexpected but very cool. thank you!

$25 sent, sourced from the US "Save our Economy" fund. Glad it's going to a Canadian!! Keeping my fingers crossed for a CPU (either would make me happy) in the drawing...

Donating $25 live.
I love this site

Another $25 incoming. I told myself I was finished donating, but that processor is too tempting a grand prize to ignore!

I've gotten lots of great ideas from Mike and crew.
Don't frequent the forum very often but when I have, the discussions have been very helpful.
Sent in a small Paypal donation to help the cause.
Thanks for all the work Mike and crew!

The importance of the <15 dBA anechoic chamber hit home to me on the same day that the fund drive was started, when the article about the visit to the Audio Engineering Society school was also published.

The article mentioned the 19 dB computer (as measured in the 18 dB ambient) that was brought to the school. Unless I'm mistaken, there's no way that the computer would produce 19 dB if measured in pristine absolute silence, or even 18 dB. 18 dB when added to an 18 dB ambient would produce 21 dB. Without a slide rule in front of me, I would estimate that the system actually produced around 15 dB.

So, yes, you can extrapolate, but the higher the ambient the cruder the estimate is going to be, because each measured decibel represents much more acoustic energy when the reading is higher.

The scientific precision is important. Perhaps not so much when dealing with a lone computer in one's study or living room, but in an office with 20 computers....

Original post updated:

Congrats on reaching the goal!
Now get those new hardware!

The testing hardware's already all on order. That's not the challenge. Building the anechoic chamber is. It's going to be quite a challenge to do it well with all the constraints we have to deal with -- limited space & budget. (Remember -- a typical commercial anechoic chamber runs well over $100,000!) We'll start building some time in early June, most likely, when all the options and details have been completely studied. No point rushing in and then finding out a different strategy would have given better results!

For example, I just discovered on the weekend that a friend works in a telephony company that has a small anechoic chamber in Vancouver mostly unused for 2 years due to changes in their business (expansion at another site). I visited his offices & the chamber, and it's poorly insulated from external noise even though serious foam wedges are in place. It's in somewhat poor state of repair due to disuse. But the wedges would certainly work well for SPCR's chamber... if the company would see fit to dismantle their anechoic chamber. Maybe they would, because they hardly use it. Finding out might take some time.... and also to find out how much $$ they'd want to part with the wedges. This is definitely worth waiting to investigate fully.


Will these wedges become ours?

They do have one in the Exeter University where I am a student. Might have to talk nicely to someone about whether it is useable by anyone else....

Awesome! It's like a giant spongy iron butterfly. That would be great if you can get ahold of their obsolete/underutilized equipment for cheap. Remember you have thousands of people here that will vouch for the usefulness of this wonderful site.

@MikeC: i can't wait for the 20-pages-1000-hires-pics article on the "SPCR special chamber build and 1st test"

you're absolutely right. this setup will likely have to last SPCR for many years so I can imagine there is a lot of pressure to get it right "first time"; given the severely constrained budget and material/human resources, it may not be possible to "do over" the project if something big like the acoustic treatment or "room within a room" don't perform sufficiently well to achieve everything that everyone is hoping for from this setup (ie a noise floor in the 10-15dBA region). slow and steady wins the race!

You know what would be fun? Having each of the wedges adorned with a donors name. We could all become immortalized in various reviews, assuming some "in-chamber" testing shots are taken, either pre or post testing of course!

Think of how cool it would be to see your name in the background of the anechoic chamber on some random review in the future!

In case you don't exceed your budget, you could use the rest to buy things that need to be tested, instead of waiting for them to be sponsored. Dunno if availability of testable stuff ever was the problem, though.

Especially for items where it might be possible that the producer would send cherry-picked items for review. Anonymously buying them from any store would eliminate that possibility totally.

This lurker (me) has giventh thee 25$ because he supports what this website does.

Indeed. Just donated $25

when setting up the room is complete i think MikeC could/should use it to record some of his classical guitar, i'd like to hear that! would you get a SNR on par with a proper recording studio with this set up?

Not if I was playing.

Actually it would sound weird. The room would be way too dead. It would probably work well for recording single instrument tracks in a multi-track recording of music that's created purely in the electronic sphere. You could shape every aspect of the sound electronically without worrying about the "natural" ambient -- there would be none.

So, when do we get the results of the prize draw?

When our Canadian and American friends will be awake!