Q&A answers from the first few comments: 1. Can you do fan and noise tests at the same time? A: No. All other lab testing stops for noise testing, except for standard bench tests in a distant lab room. HVAC is also turned off for testing. 2. Do you really do noise tests late at night? A: Yes. We always have done noise tests outside of traffic hours and our test facilities have always been located away from main roads, so getting 0 traffic is easy. We typically test at night or very early morning. 3. But why do you try to get 1-2dB lower? A: Because the point of the operation is to get the best reasonably possible. There's no point settling for worse test controls if it's as easy as wheeling a box around to get something better for our content and reviews. 4. Will you add more acoustic padding to this room? A: We thought about it, but the noise floor is so low here that our next most sensible move would be to save that expense to instead build our full room-scale anechoic chamber. That'll be in the future a bit.

Discord group complained they couldn't hear me, I got a 35$ USB mic, they then complained they could hear the army of crickets outside.

"It's like a Zoom lens" *camera zooms in* "Nice"

As an acoustical engineer, I’m so happy to see this. Many companies use very similar booths but having a 3rd party tester is always a positive. I bet many of them would GLADLY participate in round-robin or Inter-laboratory trials with you.

It is incredibly satisfying seeing The Lab fill up with this awesome gear and how the team is able to drive precision and accuracy to insane levels. As most of the audience will never get to see this kind of equipment up close, it's really cool that we get to come along for the ride and see it in action.

Used to work in an RF tech shop. 1k tones have a special place in my seethe-bucket. Can confirm is murder tone.

@10:30 In case 137 people haven't already warned you, the fanless PC could still have coil whine. I know that's normally not an issue with motherboards, but considering the noise floor you're shooting for, and how sensitive the measuring mic is... It might at least be worth quantifying. 🤷‍♂️👍️

pretty cool seeing that passively cooled pc coming back for it's intended purpose here!

not first

Make sure wherever it ends up it's at least 4 inches away from any wall for a proper airgap and avoid contact with any hard surface like that pole for instance. I build medical grades ones and that's the rule we follow. Love you all! Good luck! Edit: also can't wait for my cups and coasters to arrive!!!

I'm absolutely loving the battle of the labs at the moment. GN gets power supply tester and fan tester. Aris gets fan exactly the same fan tester. And the respect to be like "no other KZfaq outlets, barring hardware busters" just great stuff in general.

I'm looking forward to the passive PC build.

Kind of wild to think about the history that chamber has, and all the products Apple must have tested in it. Always cool to see that kind of gear make it's way to less wealthy owners as time goes on, and help bring them up in the world. I've handled so much gear like that in my lifetime living here in the SF bay, at one point I had basic equipment from all the major players in my workspace, things like Herman Miller chairs and the old Galant desks and cabinets from Ikea. Have had some nicer stuff as well, just not PC tech related. I've got a bunch of the speaker tops that were on the last pink floyd tour for example, stuff that's almost as old as I am and heavily used but still going and sounds fantastic. Excited to see what new stuff comes out of this in the near future! Just wait, soon people will be begging you to test some of the audio gear apple makes to call them on some kind of bullshit xD

8:55 And here we have Steve doing a benchmark by walking around 👍

its nice that youll be able to use that cool backwards motherboard and cooler. not many ways to put it to work, but this is perfect for it

It's nice to see another person that puts this much thought into things they do. People around me would always make fun of me or say I'm crazy or that it doesn't matter. Thanks for all you do man.

This may sound like an odd thing to say but be sure to gather the noise floor with the lights off, flourescent lights have a audible hum to them that you will likely be picking up if you get down towards 12-14db

From my point of view it pretty much makes sense that the quitest place in that room would be near the bathroom. In german we call the bathroom sometimes "stilles Örtchen" which translates literally to 'quiet place'. Kind of weird but fun I guess.

first it was the fan tester and now its the sound chamber, gn is growin huge and excited to see more stuff like that on youtube

a nice idea i think it will be to create a booth around the chamber like a rectangle with 20-30 cm longer sides and a front door . open a few holes for your cables and have that booth covered outside and inside and top with those noice reduction /redirection panels / foam etc . also you can put some type of ruber carpet under the chamber to reduce any noice / vibrations from the floor travelling up from the wheals to the metal structure of that chamber . for more extreme status . you can make an extra booth covering the other two . but that is just crazy , or not ? anyway also plz forgive me for any grammar mistakes , english is not my primary languange .

Its a good thing this video was recorded at 60 FPS, if it wasnt, Steve moving that thing would have been just a blur! LOL. I am really looking forward to fan testing and good sound testing. Thank you! Keep up the good work!

Glad to see two best actual tech KZfaqrs are fully determined about higher tech stuffs. Ltt is gonna be the fancy one with tons of spaces and facilities. When GN gonna make mango people dream true.

Good Tip could save in the future. I work in facilities and renovate/move these power poles alot. Terminate the main circuit off in the ceiling with a Commando socket. Ideally in the centre of the room. Turn the power pole into an extension lead with the command leaving enough flex. You can then move that bad boy without an electrician !

Steve, look how far we’ve come!

Vibration decoupling could potentially play a part in the chambers noise floor. Set the chambers on some rubber feet rated for that weight, and make sure it deforms elastically a few mm's, and the resonant frequency should be low enough for A-filtered measurements.

Just a suggestion to assist with placement. Rather than finding the quietest part of the room building a small room/enclosure. That is lined with acoustic rubber on all walls may allow you to place it in a better location for you AND give a lower noise floor. Having the wheels on the rubber will lower vibration coming from outside also. It’s generally not practical to have to work at strange hours to avoid things like local traffic.

Star Trek Cats: A book I never knew I needed until now! Thank you as always for giving us better insight into GN's setup to provide us with reliable and solid information we can use.

Geez Louise! 13.x dBA noise floor is actually veryyy silent! Good stuff! Having my Acer laptop on idle is basically 26dBA if I hold my breath.

Top shelf KZfaq content

To be fair, I would look into putting up some sound absorbing foam onto the walls. Since drywall is more or less a speaker, any vibrations will get into the air. And there is all sorts of vibrations in the environment, for an example road noise conducted through the ground.

i think steve should grow out a goatee and dye it red for halloween.

First youtuber to use a passively cooled system in an intended use case. Yay!

Y'all should bolt the passive PC onto a desk in that hole between the wall and the chamber. It'd be right by it for easy data transfer and itd make for a fun build.

Effective method of reviewing graphic cards as well, walk into the room and see if you hate it.

Huge fan of the extra content 👌 pun intended

I quickly saw the thumbnail and I instantly thought Jay has arrived at the GNOffice for a new look around or it could be Linus

Had a few corsair fans fail me, and looking to re-fan the entire PC in my next build. Pretty excited to see which fans are junk and which are good, as they pretty much all cost ~$20 canadian, with few exceptions.

Looks comfy inside!

Love the harbor freight tool cart😂😂😂

This project sounds amazing

Impressive. 22.6K people watched a video of Steve moving a big box 10 feet. :D

Love the thumbnail

I watched Steve move a box for 11 minutes... awesome i need to reflect on my life

Build a small room around it. Line the inside with plastic, fill the walls with sand. Then you can put some form of acoustic foam inside if you believe you will even need it at that point. The sand should do most if not all the work. But I think it's best to give you guys an honest chance at creating an environment for round-clock usage. Might have to make a custom door of sorts, but it will be worth it and I think probably a relatively inexpensive solution. Basically a vocal booth on steroids. An extra ~500$ isn't much to make an 8x8 or what have you.

It's great to see how you guys are really taking the time to set this up well so you'll get data that will be useful for comparisons far into the future. Plus I just like test equipment.

Lol, the noise chamber glory hole had a treasure map in it, interesting 🤔. Super excited to see all the new fan testing; because I'm probably gonna replace mine for more powerful fans.

G'day Steve, I like that Central Position for the Chamber, then use that wall for the associated workbench & the Totally Passive PC, the only thing I would change would be 180 rotation so that the Cable Passthrough is on the Wall Side where the Data Collection PC will be & the Door opens to the Larger end of the Wall, 🤔As for needing to move the Set up for Unboxing there seems to be more room between the Power Pole & the other side of the room for that purpose anyway. Ps that Mic is Amazing, but is it as Clever & Funny as the other Mike 😂

You need a "In Space No One can hear You Scream" Sticker for it

Could reduce sound in the room more with acustic panels. Or make a small dry wall room for the test box to sit in to have a double sound proof room.

I like the us general carts.

Nice! Way to go!

Steve doing noise floor testing: OH BOY 3AM!

At (this low of a) noise floor, could "electronic" noise like coil whine from PC components, or just electronic interference, become an issue? Even aside from GPUs, I can every now and then hear things like transformer hiss from PSUs/UPSs. And I'd assume that some MBs are buzzier than others too.

Love the extras!

Curious about what you didn't like about that cart as a tool cart. I'd considered buying one.

One thought - with the fan tester and the sound chamber in the same room, you probably won't be able to overlap testing (I assume the fan tester is relatively loud) Or are they just too big to move further into the building through normal office doors?

It'd be interesting if Steve open the door and found Patrick (or his body) inside the chamber.

Awesome. ❤️ Off topic question : when can we expect the new Intel laptop reviews if you plan to do one ? Really would be cool to hear your opinion on Intel's new features and gpus. ❤️

It's dope that the mic for noise testing is so sensitive but it seems like a bit of a bummer you've still gotta shut so much off even with the sound chamber.

How much performance would the noise collection computer need? A purely passively cooled arm based soc board may be easier to keep cool, and less power being thrown around to risk coil whine.

Do you think you would see any improvement from adding some sound panels to the walls. I wonder if and how much insulation that dropped ceiling has as well. Might not lower your noise floor but help keep it low.

dang, i see light outside. you guys mustve stayed late enough to see the sunrise ;P

Who loves GN? WE LOVE GN 🥳🥳

Acoustic ceiling tiles

This should be interesting.

I wonder if that mic will be sensitive enough to pick up electrical whine from the passively cooled computer next to it.

Why not use the chamber metal itself as a heatsink for the testing PC, and find a brushless motor than can handle very low voltage input to run a massive fan at as low of power as possible?

woooo

'Amplifiers Amplify - its amazing!' Tek Jesus, 2022

Cool

Based and qualitypilled

Oh to be a fly on the wall when a car passed by at 0300 and ruined one of Steve's noise floor tests...

harbor freight in the house

Curious about the egg carton pattern on the inside. Is it a bit worn down from who ever last owned it, and if so, does that affect the results vs having a new pattern panel thing put in it?

Isn’t the point of having a box that reduces noise that you can put it more places? I’m not sure why 1-2 Decibels difference of external noise would substantially affect the noise measured internally within the chamber. Genuinely curious because I’m sure you guys have solid reasoning but I just can’t see it.

Whenever I see Steve in a full body shot he looks like he's a short guy, can't tell if it's just an optical illusion or if Steve actually is sub 5'10".

We use those US General carts at my job. They suck lol.

Why not use sound insulation foam on the wall to minimize reflections? Just a thought

nice

Interested in the fan testing...tho I'm guessing the conclusions will be Noctua>>>>>>>>>everyone else

would adding some sound panels /bas traps into the room help to trap just a little bit more sound? or would that just give enought measureble gain in an already quiet room?

Are you adding extra insulation on the new walls, above and below the chamber?

Will furnature change the sound profile of the room forcing you to move the equipment as you add tables?

I can’t remember if you guys mentioned previously, but are you guys renting the new spot or did you guys buy it? Looking forward to seeing what you guys do with all the space

Once all of the furniture and equipment is installed, the chosen location may no longer be the most quiet. Also, the chamber needs to be farther away from that power drop pole.

Comment for the algorithm

GN interior design episode

when is the fan machine test video coming ?

The Harbor Freight tool cart not being good makes me sad. I've been looking at one for home.

U.S. General a "not good tool cart"? No, I don't believe that for a second. /s As a professional, if you're buying tool storage at Harbor Freight, Icon is the brand to go with.

I want to know what the noise floor is inside the chamber!

Late to the party. Can you use noise cancellation outside the chamber to improve ambient noise floor?

Have you considered for your testing methodology that some more "normal" points of data might be useful? It's fantastic to know how scientifically quiet a fan is, but it would also be great to get "sure this is XX dba quieter, but that's completely un noticeable in most people's environments".

How would you point the microphone at what ever your testing in the noise measurement box? The box looks kind of absorbent like an mini anechoic chamber so "98%*" of the noise emitted will never hit the microphone? is there something like an Integrating sphere for sound? *random guess

Laboratory-grade Feng Shui.

Of course you could hear everything better with the mic/headphones, because you normally have hair dampening

Sorry if this already asked but why hide the manufacturer name/model for the fan tester? I mean I know what this exact model is but I can't see a reason why you guys would want to hide it. Just curious, thanks!

If you're talking about a noise floor, wouldn't it *not* be dBa, but just dB? I assumed the noise fooor *is* the "a" in dBa.

Noice

What noise is so small you'd really need that, but noisy enough to care about it?