Does Computer Fan Impact Sound?

[LonelyPostmodernist]

Hi everyone, I posted yesterday about streamers and get lots of great responses. Let me thank everyone at that to start.

My conclusion from that post is that: streamers don't matter. They're merely computers.

However, I read about Amirm's post about building a music server and he mentioned that it's best to use fanless, low-consumption, and low CPU computers. Does that mean that hi-end computer with fans, more than 1500w power, and 12900k CPU is inferior to that kind of computer? Do I need to build another PC just for audio?

All the best to everyone.

 

[DVDdoug]

The idea is simply that if you can hear the fan running it's affecting the sound you hear. Or, if you are recording with a microphone the mic will pick-up the fan noise.

 

[julian_hughes]

If you can't hear the fans then they don't matter. If you can, they do.

You really don't need powerful hardware to render audio, handle network traffic or pass data via USB. It's totally doable on a single board embedded device with a few hundred MB RAM and power supplied via USB, i.e. raspberry pi, orange pi etc.

 

[AnalogSteph]

Yeah, in my experience even a lowly Core 2 Duo tends to do a lot of thumb-twiddling when running Foobar2000... think single-digit % CPU utilization with the SoX resampler DSP being used (which, mind you, is heavily SSE3 optimized).

So you can use pretty much what you want, it should just be as quiet as possible to not deter from the listening experience. Not being super prone to DPC latency issues would be a plus.

 

[Rip City Dave]

OK, now I need an audiophile-grade fan for my computer. Will it give me more air?

 

[Jimbob54]

OK, now I need an audiophile-grade fan for my computer. Will it give me more air?

No, but it counters the hot treble on some recordings.

 

[Trell]

The idea is simply that if you can hear the fan running it's affecting the sound you hear. Or, if you are recording with a microphone the mic will pick-up the fan noise.

A "hi-end computer with fans, more than 1500w power, and 12900k CPU" will be difficult to keep silent during load while still have adequate cooling, though.

 

[RayDunzl]

Ceiling Fans create a measurable problem...

Close in jitter?

Here are the jitter results for the Benchmark DAC2 done by Stereophile. That is about as good as it gets. 16 bit and 24 bit. The spikes in the 16 bit signal are supposed to be there. They should be at certain exact frequencies and levels with nothing else. The result below is essentially...

www.audiosciencereview.com

 

[phoenixdogfan]

When my computer's fan starts up it sounds like somebody has fired up the Pratt & Whitney's of an F14 on the deck of the Gerald R Ford.

 

[Kal Rubinson]

OK, now I need an audiophile-grade fan for my computer. Will it give me more air?

This one will:

Eminent Technology: home

 

[phoenixdogfan]

This one will:
View attachment 188081

Eminent Technology: home

So a sub that can actually rip your ears off if you get too close to it?

 

[dlaloum]

I have built a completely passive Home Theatre / Audio PC...

I used a case which doubles as a heatsink - and is in standard rack format

HDPLEX H5 Fanless Chassis

HDPLEX H5 Enjoys Free Shipping Worldwide Stock Status USA :In Stock Asia :In Stock Germany : In Stock

hdplex.com

I used an AMD Ryzen 4750G APU (current version is the 5700G) - which combines a decent graphic card, with a cpu having 8 cores - all for a maximum heat output of 65W.... it can also be underclocked down to 35W or 45W... but have not found this to be necessary.

This CPU is relatively pricey - and if I was looking at something to do only HT/Audio, I would go for the 5600G (drops to 6 cores, keeps the GPU)

Performance is great on older games (most of my gaming is 10 years old or more!) - Home Theatre performance is excellent, as is audio performance (it has both HDMI and SPDIF ouputs - choose the right motherboard!).

Totally silent - there are no moving parts... it's not a cheap PC, and it takes a bit of work if you build it yourself - there are a couple of retailers that build systems based on this case or a couple of its competitors (Streacom comes to mind)

I still have my older HTPC with quiet fans, but fans nevertheless - which also has BD / DVD drives so I can rip stuff to my NAS... I only power it up when I need the drives for ripping.

All viewing/listening is done from Streaming apps, or NAS stored music/video

 

[Berwhale]

When my computer's fan starts up it sounds like somebody has fired up the Pratt & Whitney's of an F14 on the deck of the Gerald R Ford.

Get some Noctua's... https://noctua.at/

My PC is full of the Redux ones. I think they look a bit nicer than the brown/beige ones I put in my previous PC...

The photo's a little old, I also have a PWM fan controller in there now which lets me run the fans very slowly without them stopping...

NA-FC1

The NA-FC1 is a compact, highly flexible controller for 4-pin PWM fans that can both work on its own for manual speed reduction and also work in tandem with the automatic motherboard fan control. By adjusting the NA-FC1’s speed control dial, users can either manually set a PWM duty cycle from 0...

noctua.at

 

[Kal Rubinson]

So a sub that can actually rip your ears off if you get too close to it?

Yeah but you should never be anywhere near it when it is installed properly.

 

[dlaloum]

Get some Noctua's... https://noctua.at/

My PC is full of the Redux ones. I think they look a bit nicer than the brown/beige ones I put in my previous PC...

View attachment 188088

The photo's a little old, I also have a PWM fan controller in there now which lets me run the fans very slowly without them stopping...

NA-FC1

The NA-FC1 is a compact, highly flexible controller for 4-pin PWM fans that can both work on its own for manual speed reduction and also work in tandem with the automatic motherboard fan control. By adjusting the NA-FC1’s speed control dial, users can either manually set a PWM duty cycle from 0...

noctua.at

My older HTPC has noctua's - but nothing beats a fanless heatsink case!

 

[Berwhale]

My older HTPC has noctua's - but nothing beats a fanless heatsink case!

...apart from my Dell and HP servers in the garage at the end of my garden which are absolutely silent... from inside the house .

I stopped running HTPCs around 10 years ago, the last one I built was in this case... https://www.anandtech.com/show/2637/2

 

[nikosidis]

OK, now I need an audiophile-grade fan for my computer. Will it give me more air?

That is a good one

 

[Kalcipher]

Get some Noctua's... https://noctua.at/

My PC is full of the Redux ones. I think they look a bit nicer than the brown/beige ones I put in my previous PC...

View attachment 188088

The photo's a little old, I also have a PWM fan controller in there now which lets me run the fans very slowly without them stopping...

NA-FC1

The NA-FC1 is a compact, highly flexible controller for 4-pin PWM fans that can both work on its own for manual speed reduction and also work in tandem with the automatic motherboard fan control. By adjusting the NA-FC1’s speed control dial, users can either manually set a PWM duty cycle from 0...

noctua.at

i was going to say that.. i discovered Noctua when replacing the fan on my sub amp. the original fan was really loud, 36db. Noctua fan was in the low teens.

 

[AnalogSteph]

i was going to say that.. i discovered Noctua when replacing the fan on my sub amp. the original fan was really loud, 36db. Noctua fan was in the low teens.

At substantially lower throughput, I assume. Noctua fans are very good (the one on my NH-U14S has basically no bearing noise whatsoever, very impressive), but literal magic is a bit beyond their pay grade.

My PC is full of the Redux ones. I think they look a bit nicer than the brown/beige ones I put in my previous PC...

The photo's a little old, I also have a PWM fan controller in there now which lets me run the fans very slowly without them stopping...

Looks like a 120 mm AIO in there... is the case too small to fit a 120 mm air cooling option? Only then is it worth it at all... remember, the entire point of watercooling is being able to use a nice big radiator without having to fit it right onto the CPU.

I'm a bit puzzled by the need for an external fan controller, are your board's facilities this limited? Usually PWM fan control is the easy part, 3-pin may get a bit more tricky. I don't recognize the board, what model is it?

When my computer's fan starts up it sounds like somebody has fired up the Pratt & Whitney's of an F14 on the deck of the Gerald R Ford.

Sounds like precisely the kind of thing you don't want in a quiet PC - small, high RPM fans with lots of tonal components (screech factor). There's a reason why 120 mm and 140 mm are the most common fan sizes in DIY PC builds.

 

[TrevC]

I found the hard drive made most of the noise on my PC. Replacing it with a WD solid state drive rendered it almost inaudible as well as reducing the boot up to less than 20 seconds.