hey all, first time poster, long time lurker:)
i have a question about the Antec P-150's dampening material versus after market sound insulation you can get from, say, AcoustiPack or dampTek. just how effective is the plastic sound dampening material on a stock P-150? my concern has a lot to do with my desire to use the P-150 to house my music production hardware for my home studio. i need this PC to be as close to dead silent so I can not worry about my condensers picking up ambient noise from the drives/ fans in the case. i realize that the components have a lot to do with the design so I have opted to go with the Zalman 460W PSU, a Zalman CPU cooler and a Zalman heat pipe to cut down on the noise. i have had good experience with Zalman components so I am going to stick with what I know works unless something like the Scythe Ninja works better at cutting noise down for my CPU cooling.
Dampening material on Antec P150...
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The insulation on the P150 is quite thin and hard. I would expect that it reduces panel resonance, but does very little in terms of noise insulation. When I moved my computer to the P150, there was very little improvement in noise right off the bat. In my experience, the P150 gives you lots of ability to quiet your pc, but it won't do it on it's own. You still have to pick the quietest components you can afford in order to have a quiet computer. I don't have experience with the components you listed, so other people will have to give you their opinions there. I would caution that if you have hard drives you are planning on re-using, they will likely be the single largest source of noise once the rest of the pc is built with quiet components. The suspension helps, but having a silent multi-drive pc is a difficult challenge.