Wow.

Any ideas on how much these fans will live up to the hype, and what the pricing will be like?

They've only just announced their partnership and a single prototype. I think it's admirable they even stated some concrete targets... but to ask about reality vs. hype or pricing is way too early. There's hardly even any hype yet anyway.

heloooo $100 fan, considering Noctua's already high prices. Have do decide between a Hard drive or fan now lol.

Yeah it's a big IF and then by no means guaranteed to become a product that can be sold in quantity due to cost. I'm betting they might at least learn something otherwise useful in the process.

IMO, there's every incentive for both companies involved to make sure the end product is viewed as affordable and effective. It's always a numbers game -- you need to volume to lower selling price, recover development cost.

Given all that, I think the focus will be less on super quiet and more on quiet but with high airflow -- ie, something not for the silencers but for the masses. A 120mm fan that does 20 dBA/1m while spinning at maybe 3000rpm (with the resulting high airflow) would be much more sellable than a 12 dBA fan at 800rpm.

Not likely. The current high end Noctua was at 15-20€ all the time. When it was NF-S12, when it was NF-P12, even now with NF-F12. So you can pretty much expect this new fan to be sub-20€ as well.

It's worth repeating the point that as well as the NF-F12 itself Noctua supply a set of soft mountings, a PWM Y cable, a PWM extension cable and a PWM low noise adapter. In other words, a complete fan fitting kit that at around 15-20€ seems to me to be good value.

Don't get me wrong, I love noctua (as you can see from my sig) just adding speakers/mics, small processor and circuitry to a fan has got to be expensive. Plus your R&D

80% more airflow and 120% higher static pressure, impressive.

Fascinating, but I wonder how it is going to factor in PWM or voltage speed control.

This looks promising.

It'll be interesting to see how it's implemented in a production product.

Woah. Even if it's a $40+ fan, you could pair it with one of the umpteen $30-40 tower coolers on the market and have a remarkably quiet & effective CPU cooler (assuming production models are as quiet as the demo unit Rabbit linked).

I also wonder how well this scales; I'd like a floor-standing oscillating fan with this tech (maybe even a ceiling fan).

I have some doubts it will work in practice, because the sound of a fan when case or heatsink mounted is different
than the sound of the same fan in open air. If it will really work when mounted, something like: noise similar to 600 rpm,
but with airflow similar to 1,000 rpm, then I'd be very interested, and willing to pay 30+ euros / fan.

Probably not in comparison to the cost of making the fan. Those fans have a lot in them and that plastic is probably a lot more expensive than what you see used for other purposes. Seems to me they don't need that much of a chip... though it might be an issue if you want to be able to go around varying the voltage to control fan speed.

The whole purpose is that it is adaptive.

These headphones can adapt to anything you throw at them:
http://www.bing.com/shopping/audio-tech ... &FORM=HURE

The range and type of sound these adapters will have to handle are fairly limited... especially if you get to design the source of the noise in conjunction with the noise cancellation circuit.

It is almost certain that the fan speed will not be subject to change (at least by voltage or with PWM) otherwise that would complicate the design of the electronics too much. I suspect they are going to want the circuits to assume they are getting a nice steady 12v.

It doesn't use a speaker: "The RotoSub active noise control technology requires no anti-noise speakers.
The fan generates the anti-sound inside the fan itself, in the optimum acoustical position."

Seems to be reasonably mature technology.

In theory, depending where you place the speakers, you should be able to use the fan to exert noise control over other components.

It seems to me that it would be most rational for them to go after the high end water cooling market followed by video card cooling... maybe something co-branded with Colorpower. Can't you just picture the color combination?

Looks to me like we are talking about a 3000 rpm NF-F12. Makes sense. It has low mass fan blades that are likely well suited for this type of application.

Something that might compete with the 3000 rpm Scythe Gentle Typhoon (versions of which go all the way up to 5400 rpms)
http://www.frozencpu.com/products/12363 ... =g36c15s60

If you look at RotoSub's page, they have photos which allude to the concept of how the noise cancellation might. It could be a relatively simple concept that utilises the fan itself as the out of phase transducer. It appears that the inner edge of the fan frame has an electromagnetic strip which interacts with permanent magnets inserted or applied to the fins of the fan. (magnetic strips perhaps). In any event, the most costly aspect of this fan will likely be the R & D and the control module for the electromagnetic strip. Modulation control could easily be detected by the same method. The biggest question left would be the effect upon the bearing of the fan and its reduced product life.

What this means is that the product doesn't necessarily have to be overly costly. If it's applied to industry fans as well as small fans, then the cost of development can be absorbed quickly.

Cat

I don't have the slightest inkling of how such a thing might work.

The fact that Noctua has bought into it gives it some credibility.


Uh. Trifles. Go for the big guns. Go for the outdoor air conditioners, etc. This sets the imagination ablaze that it could be an invention that transforms the world. (Does anything ever do that?)

I was quite surprised to read about this technology - sounds very cool indeed.

But why do the masses need high airflow in an era of Ivy Bridge CPUs with i5s that have TDPs of 65W with integrated GPUs that are more than sufficient for the masses, not to mention reasonably priced SSDs? Why do the masses need high airflow in 2012?

graphics cards

As cmthomson said, graphics cards. You have to know gamers represent by far the biggest market segment for all kinds of accessories for PCs, and this naturally includes fans. There's obviously a use for such fans in the commercial PC sector, for servers, which in recent years, have finally been identified as the primary cause of hearing loss among IT pros who've worked in server rooms.

If this thing succeeds, the demand could be in the millions a year. The number of apps for 60mm to 300mm fans -- and where lower noise would be welcome -- is absolutely astonishing. Bath & kitchen exhaust fans, fridges, ovens, microwaves, a bazillion electronic/electric devices....

Have you heard the video? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=afL09LkfHVw

It reduces the 'fan whine' by 25dB, however, it doesn't seem to reduce the rushing air sound pressure levels by very much, if at all. Reducing whine is a great thing, I'm not whining about that, it's that my system with high quality fans, whine isn't what I hear - it's the steady low level whoosh of forced air. But, still, a whoosh is more tolerable than a whine anytime. Bring on the non-whining kitchen/bath fans!

Most speakers use a electromagnet to resonate a cone. Here it looks like they are using the blades instead of a cone. As the mass of the blades increases I would expect this would become harder and harder to implement. The Notua fan they are using is the 120mm one with the lowest mass fan blades.

Whether they need it or not... there is a group of people who are into water cooling. This is the ideal fan to bring their fan noise down to a low roar. Some of those installations have to be really loud.

It should reduce whatever sound the microphones pick up.... provided it is tuned to operate in that frequency range. So it is all about microphone placement and circuit tuning. Though my guess would be that as the mass of the blades increases, it will be less able to work with higher frequencies.