Fan Noise: Loudness Perception and "Timbre"
Рет қаралды 404
I wanted to answer the question why I don't do "noise normalised" testing, so here's a short explanation. Sound level meters are a great tool for many things, but they are not really suitable for comparing the loudness of quiet PC fans because of the nature of the sound such fans make - it has varying frequency, texture, and tonal colour (timbre) whose "loudness" can't be measured. Moreover, listeners may experience these elements as loud, annoying, and sometimes even stress-inducing. I hope that you enjoy this short video and find it helpful.
@PetruV 6 ай бұрын
the A curve on db meters aims to mimic the human ear and it's reduced sensitivity to lower frequencies,altough it;s not perfec
@FanPhys 6 ай бұрын
Indeed, this is called the weighting and there are several different weightings for dB measurements. The problem is that you're still only getting the pressure level, which is not very much actual information about the sound itself.
@korser1328 6 ай бұрын
This is why I've been a long time buyer of Noctua fans. The premium price in performance is not worth it, but the reliability and fan pitch/hum has always been pleasant to my ears unlike some other brands. I've switched over to Phanteks T30s now, offering better performance(because of 30mm thickness) while remaining quiet. I can't speak on the reliability yet as my time with them have been short.
@ydihtty 6 ай бұрын
Yeah I have been trying to capture some of this stuff in my channel. I feel like a lot of people don't care too much about the performance of a fan, they just want it to work well enough and not sound annoying while doing so. Of course there are aesthetic preferences too but this is just talking about the performance/noise aspect.
@FanPhys 6 ай бұрын
As you know, I did some similar testing a few years back with my meter and "proper" audio capture, and I realise that while it's nice to get an impression of how quiet these fans can be, ultimately it's down to individual preference and the noise of the environment - which is likely different for everyone. On a daily basis I have three Delta 120mm fans running at low rpm and I can't hear them over my mechanical HDDs.
@athmaid 6 ай бұрын
I would love to see someone compare fans taking into account psychoacoustic characteristics like tonality, roughness, sharpness, etc. The formulas to calculate this are openly available, for example in form of Matlab code
@FanPhys 6 ай бұрын
Yeah it's possible, but it'd be a huge amount of work requiring the proper test environment (anechoic chamber) and very high precision measuring equipment, plus the expertise to operate it. But it would be interesting!
@athmaid 6 ай бұрын
@@FanPhys I'm pretty sure even a cobbled together testing setup could get us more meaningful results than just some dB values. I already have a tiny Dayton iMM-6 measuring mic and an interface with pretty good SNR. I might just get an anemometer, build an archaic sound booth and give it a go lol
@LogioTek 6 ай бұрын
1100 and 1600 RPM are solid data points that cover most common use cases. I'm guessing human ear is evolutionary more tuned for pitch range of speech and animal sounds from our environmet. Lower pitch hum is more preferred and better blends into background noise.
@FanPhys 6 ай бұрын
That's pretty much my thinking - common use cases. I will probably do some high speed comparative tests for people like myself who don't mind a bit of extra performance now and again x)