INTERACT FORUM
More => Old Versions => JRiver Media Center 19 for Windows => Topic started by: JimH on March 11, 2014, 12:40:42 pm
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[Split from Synapse discussion:
http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=87884.0 ]
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A good fan running slowly can be quiet. jmone thought it was (http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=87617.0).
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A good fan running slowly can be quiet. jmone thought it was (http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=87617.0).
Alas, quiet isn't silent. If the fan is audible in a quiet room it will be audible in quiet passages of music. No fan has ever got less noisy as it gets older. I listen to a lot of classical music, which can have a huge dynamic range and some very very quiet sounds, including silence. Fan noise would be an absolute deal-breaker. The Logitech Touch is silent. The Sonore mini server (http://www.sonore.us/SOtM1.html) is silent, and not significantly different in price to the product you are proposing, though based on squeezebox software. Auralic have a fanless DLNA renderer in the pipeline, albeit at more than twice the price. I honestly don't think you can call it an audiophile products with a fan. DACs nowadays have 24 bits of resolution, and though few systems can deliver that dynamic range an audible fan will eat into it unnecessarily.
Here (http://finance.yahoo.com/news/auralic-introduces-industry-first-wireless-060900959.html) is Auralics press release about their proposed renderer - wireless, silent, some pretty impressive data rates.
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One important point for me, although I don't know how "reasonable" this is in other peoples' eyes, is not just the silent issue but having no moving parts in a machine that is going to be on a lot of the time. There may be an "audiophile" angle from that, e.g. no clicks from disks, no EMI from electric motors etc, but I was coming at it from the angle of having nothing mechanical to break down!
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The Sonore mini server (http://www.sonore.us/SOtM1.html) is silent, and not significantly different in price to the product you are proposing, though based on squeezebox software.
I wasn't quite sure at first glance what this machine does. It's described as a server, so I assume from this it has a Squeeze server in it, but also can act as a DLNA renderer, albeit with no actual outputs apart from USB which means an external DAC or USB-to-SPDIF converter is required?
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Alas, quiet isn't silent.
Silent isn't silent. No room is completely silent. Do you hold your breath when you listen? Can you stop your heart?
Then I have a little tinnitus (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tinnitus).
In my former career, selling wood burning stoves, we also sold 5 inch fans to hang in the corner of a doorway to move heat to other rooms. They were quiet to the point that I would call them silent. A good fan can be _very_ quiet.
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Don't know enough about it, or about prices in the us, but shuttle do some reasonable fanless pcs designed for 24/7.
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Silent isn't silent. No room is completely silent. Do you hold your breath when you listen? Can you stop your heart?
Then I have a little tinnitus (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tinnitus).
I can't see why you need to be sarcastic. A fan would be a deal breaker for people like me who prefer to listen to music in as quiet an environment as possible. OK?
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I'm sorry if you thought I was being sarcastic. It's 100% true, from my point of view. Fan does not mean noisy.
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Two interesting tables:
A quiet country setting is 30db
http://www.industrialnoisecontrol.com/comparative-noise-examples.htm
A quiet 3" (80mm) fan is 25db:
http://www.sidewindercomputers.com/tecar.html
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Two interesting tables:
A quiet country setting is 30db
http://www.industrialnoisecontrol.com/comparative-noise-examples.htm
A quiet 3" (80mm) fan is 25db:
http://www.sidewindercomputers.com/tecar.html
A fan that you can hear is a fan that you can hear. Some noise plus some more noise is more noise. Don't want to hear a fan while I'm listening to a Beethoven Quartet. Have gone from being an enthusiastic potential early adopter to absolutely not interested. Sorry!
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Tomshardware thread:
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/227663-29-noise-level
Someone there posted a list on which a theater with nobody talking was 30db.
CPU fans can be under 20db.
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Don't want to hear a fan while I'm listening to a Beethoven Quartet.
I don't think you could. Even without the music.
We won't offer a device that isn't quiet.
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Tomshardware thread:
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/227663-29-noise-level
Someone there posted a list on which a theater with nobody talking was 30db.
CPU fans can be under 20db.
Fans can be inaudibly quiet. A few months back, I posted about a cpu fan I'm using that independent testers rated at 12 dB, which was only slightly louder than the noisefloor of their anechoic chamber: http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=85573.0
I've had light bulbs or solid state electronics that put out hum much louder than that.
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Here (https://communities.intel.com/message/224111) is a perspective on the fan noise of the DN2820 from the intel forum. To quote:
The DN2820 is pretty quiet by my standards but it's not silent. Also if you use a spinning hard drive that adds a little to it. I've tried the i3s, the Celeron, and the DN2820 in my living room as HTPCs and all were totally acceptable. The only time I heard anything from them was when the room was completely silent and even then only when I was within a few feet."
So, according to that guy the fan is audible from a few feet. It won't get quieter as it gets older or dirtier. If you push the processor - say decoding to DSD realtime - it'll likely get noisier.
To interest folk like me, your product has to be silent.
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Then I have a little tinnitus (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tinnitus).
Me too but I'm still very sensitive to extraneous noise. A few years ago I built several small "HTPCs" to use around the house - all with SSD drives, pico PSUs, and the "T" version of the Intel core i3 processor. So, the only moving part is the stock low-profile Intel CPU fan which I can't hear at all unless I put my ear right up to the case. Unless one plans to sit an inch from the PC, you won't hear anything. If the fan goes bad or gets louder over time, then you just pop in a new $20 "extra-quiet" aftermarket fan.
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One thing that has started bugging me more than fans is chargers.
Samsung phone/tablet chargers in particular often emit a really irritating high frequency noise. No I'm not having a laugh - it actually really bugs me!
The frequency is high enough to make them hard to pin point and find out where they are. It reminds me of having TV's on without any reception. That always used to bug me for the same reason.
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I can't see why you need to be sarcastic. A fan would be a deal breaker for people like me who prefer to listen to music in as quiet an environment as possible. OK?
Human breathing is about 10db. Most overlook this when they are discussing "silence." http://www.decibelcar.com/menugeneric/87.html No room is silent with a human in the room, even if you can achieve a very low measured level. To really even worry about very low noise level, you can must have a room that has had extensive sound proofing. In my last theater, the walls were composed of first fiberglass insulation, then a layer of mass loaded vinyl, layer of drywall, then Green Glue and a second 5/8 layer of drywall. It still wasn't silent unless I wanted to hold my breathe and turn off the AC :).
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DACs nowadays have 24 bits of resolution, and though few systems can deliver that dynamic range an audible fan will eat into it unnecessarily.
ITYM no system can deliver that dynamic range, (by a long way).
In my former career, selling wood burning stoves,
My wood burning stove hisses quite loudly when it's in use, even though it doesn't have a fan. Presumably the air passing through the intake.
I'm afraid that I wouldn't buy such a device with a fan either. Although they can be very quiet they seem to have a tendency to generate noise at the frequencies where the ear is most sensitive. 20dB SPL noise centered on 2kHz is very audible
, 20dB SPL noise centred on 100 Hz will be inaudible.
Especially as it's not difficult to produce a PC that doesn't need a fan. (Mac mini for example.)
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Human breathing is about 10db. Most overlook this when they are discussing "silence." http://www.decibelcar.com/menugeneric/87.html No room is silent with a human in the room, even if you can achieve a very low measured level. To really even worry about very low noise level, you can must have a room that has had extensive sound proofing. ..
I have many recordings of chamber music, typically string quartets but also some larger works, where I can easily hear the soloists breathing. I am (usually) not holding my own breath, and my room isn't sound-proofed.
Not sure how this product will fit in with what's already available or imminent. A Raspberry Pi is an order of magnitude cheaper, fanless, and with a $30 hifiberry (http://www.hifiberry.com/hbdigi) offers 24/192 audio. A shuttle pc is more money, but fanless and will do video. The Auralic Aries is a lot more, but drips with audiophile street-cred. There are increasing numbers of network music players that make the whole streamer + USB DAC paradigm less attractive. If only JRiver worked with the Linn DS range!
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Andy
No offense but why are you so hung up on passive cooling when there are cooling options that are virtually inaudible.
So before you start playing Beethoven's Quartet do you turn off the HVAC system in your home so it doesn't disturb you,
it is louder than even a moderately quiet fan.
Do you realize just how quiet 20 or even 30db is?
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I do get Andy's point even though I don't suffer it. If you "know" there is a fan you can start to listen for it and at that point you are removed from the enjoyment of the event. For me (in the early days of MC) it was wondering if I was decoding DTS-MA or just the core... I just had to check..or checking the madVR stats to see if I was dropping the occasional frame (even though I'm sure I would not have noticed the difference). Thankfully single malt scotch seems to have solved the issue ;D
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Andy
No offense but why are you so hung up on passive cooling when there are cooling options that are virtually inaudible.
So before you start playing Beethoven's Quartet do you turn off the HVAC system in your home so it doesn't disturb you,
it is louder than even a moderately quiet fan.
Do you realize just how quiet 20 or even 30db is?
I don't need HVAC much, but in summer I certainly would switch it off before listening seriously. I do indeed realise how quiet 20dB or even 30dB is. Do you realise how quiet sounds in classical music can be? The silences themselves can be dramatic and are important; why intrude with a fan? And all fans get noisier with time. It's not as simple as adding up dBs ... the spectral distribution of the noise, and it's location in space are important too. It's incredible what small noises you can pick up if they aren't broadband and come from a different location in space to the instruments. The little 'tick' the disc drive in my old VAIO makes every minute or so is tiny, but clearly audible from across the room. If this proposed product is to merit the word "audiophile" in it's title, it needs to be silent imo. To say nothing of having galvanically isolated USB ports, probably with switchable 5V ... Ask on computeraudiophile - I'm pretty sure you'll get similar feedback to mine.
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Thankfully single malt scotch seems to have solved the issue ;D
;)
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I puzzled over the fan/fanless options when I built my HTPC and concluded that modern, high quality fans are acceptable. It's worthwhile to consider the tradeoffs between low noise levels and the long term effects of heat on electronic components. Good fans, like the Noctua line, have excellent life expectances. They are also inaudible at low speeds from just several inches away. I have five (5!) low speed fans installed in my HTPC case and it is inaudible from a couple of feet away, with the top cover removed. The HTPC resides inside an open cabinet midway between my speakers (the usual setup) and it's well below ambient noise levels, i.e., absolutely inaudible from my listening position. The CPU temperature seldom rises above 35 C and the total fan power use is less than 5 W. What's the typical internal temperature of a compact, fanless PC?
I think the adage about trees falling in the forest applies. Is it silent if no one can hear it?
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If only JRiver worked with the Linn DS range!
MC should work with Linn devices. If not, please start a new thread.
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Good fans, like the Noctua line, have excellent life expectances. They are also inaudible at low speeds from just several inches away. I have five (5!) low speed fans installed in my HTPC case and it is inaudible from a couple of feet away, with the top cover removed.
Being able to do that kind of thing is one of the wonderful things about the logarithmic nature of volume scaling. I hadn't really thought that issue all the way through until I was doing my most recent HTPC upgrade. Five hypothetical 15dB-fans are still significantly less loud than one 25dB-fan. So the dominating strategy (if you need air cooling) seems to be to find the highest quality, lowest noise fan you can, and if it's too low flow for your cooling needs, just use a few ;D
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To each his own but I would like to sit down with some of those people and do A/B testing with my system switching my cooling profiles between silent, full, and auto (I only use auto).
Full tower, i5 3570K@4.4GHz, huge air cooler, 8 low speed fans (6 120mm case, 2 140mm CPU), case has sound deadening applied.
Silent uses 4 fans (2 in 2 out) at 500rpm, full is self explanatory, and auto is temperature based which is the same as silent until CPU >60°c or
GPU >70°c at which time it turns other fans on depending on circumstance and starts speeding them up as need be.
There isn't any music that is going to load the system enough to raise the CPU above 60 so it stays virtually inaudible.
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To each his own but I would like to sit down with some of those people and do A/B testing with my system switching my cooling profiles between silent, full, and auto (I only use auto).
Full tower, i5 3570K@4.4GHz, huge air cooler, 8 low speed fans (6 120mm case, 2 140mm CPU), case has sound deadening applied.
Silent uses 4 fans (2 in 2 out) at 500rpm, full is self explanatory, and auto is temperature based which is the same as silent until CPU >60°c or
GPU >70°c at which time it turns other fans on depending on circumstance and starts speeding them up as need be.
There isn't any music that is going to load the system enough to raise the CPU above 60 so it stays virtually inaudible.
You're talking about a completely different system to the NUC based one proposed. And you kinda make my point. Look at what you have had to do to get fan noise "virtually" inaudible. ("Virtual" is a great word btw. As in "my program's virtually working.") And even with eight fancy fans in a sound-deadened case, what happens when you push your machine and transcode PCM to DSD realtime? That loads the processor a fair bit. What happens if you do some intensive convolution or signal processing?
I based my scepticism on the quote from the user in the intel forum, who said the fan in the NUC DN2820 was inaudible from a few feet. He made no mention of listening in a sound-proofed room, or with HVAC turned off, or in the country, so the fan is clearly audible from some number of feet, which isn't good enough if you want an 'audiophile' solution. The NUC isn't a fancy device, the fan is unlikely to be of high quality; bearings degrade, get squeaky, fans get unbalanced, products vary in any case.
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I'm curious what kind of amp are you using? Is it "silent" in that it doesn't introduce any hiss or hum in your speakers at all?
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I'm curious what kind of amp are you using? Is it "silent" in that it doesn't introduce any hiss or hum in your speakers at all?
If you're not listening to music very loudly this is quite easy to achieve even with a relatively cheap amp.
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Discussion of fans split (http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=88019.0).
Although they can be very quiet they seem to have a tendency to generate noise at the frequencies where the ear is most sensitive. 20dB SPL noise centered on 2kHz is very audible
, 20dB SPL noise centred on 100 Hz will be inaudible.
I had a premonition that the fan noise from the NUC would cause some debate.
There is a great comprehensive review website dedicated to PC noise issues, http://www.silentpcreview.com/.They tested the i3 version of the NUC a few years ago. It tested very well.
http://www.silentpcreview.com/article1315-page4.html
On the other hand, the reaction at computeraudiophile.com wasn't great:
I have it sitting on my desk and the noise was too bothersome so I unplugged it for now. It's definitely not silent.
http://www.computeraudiophile.com/f10-music-servers/intel-next-unit-computing-music-server-14010-print/
One of their posters, DaQi, found a solution with an aftermarket case:
The NUC in the Akasa case is great. The case only gets a bit warm on use and of course is completely silent. I haven't done careful analysis but it seems to sure beat the old Acer Revo it replaced. Also running on windows 8.1 it is totally stable. I have had it running non-stop for a couple weeks now without having to reboot.
Highly recommended!
http://www.frozencpu.com/products/20883/cst-1424/Akasa_Newton_Fanless_Solid_Aluminum_NUC_Case_-_VESA_Mountable_AK-ITX07-BK.html?gclid=CJyqnOSvjb0CFTFk7Aod_lsAUQ
It's not very expensive, $89. Looks cool too! I could imagine it on the dashboard of Night Rider's car.
Could JRiver add this case to the Synapse, maybe price the device at 495? If silence is the problem the Silent Synapse is the solution.
Last I checked my synapses don't make any noise. Could be due to age, however.
Edit: Here's another one: http://www.logicsupply.com/components/cases/fanless/ml300g/
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I'm curious what kind of amp are you using? Is it "silent" in that it doesn't introduce any hiss or hum in your speakers at all?
I've a Benchmark DAC2 HGC driving a pair of ATC SCM25A Pro speakers. Each speaker has three power amps built in - 150W, 60W and 25W for the bass, mid-range and treble units respectively. You need to get your ear right up against the tweeter to hear any system noise at full gain. At which gain you would probably lose your ear if you played anything - they are rated to 109dB continuous at 1m.
You're still completely missing the point though. Extraneous noise is intrusive when the music is quiet, or silent, not when it's loud. And noise from a completely different direction to the speakers is more noticeable than noise from the speakers themselves, especially as fan-noise is quite different in character to the pinky-white-noise you get from electronics. If you don't listen to classical music, or acoustic music with a wide dynamic range, I can understand how you might not understand this. And as the previous post points out, you might not be listening that loud either.
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For everyone's reference, here's another set of noise measurements on two models of NUC from a respected quiet PC review site (silentpcreview). The reviews are of one of the older i3 NUCs (mentioned by Dr. Mimosa above), and one of the newer Haswell i5 NUCs. They're not the exact NUC under discussion, but my understanding is that all the fan-cooled NUCs use a similar cooling rig (certainly these two appear to use the same rig). If the cooling setup on the below reviewed NUCs is different from the one to be used in the Synapse, the i3/i5 cooling rig is likely to be noisier than the one for the Synapse NUC, so these measurements can be viewed as a likely "ceiling" for potential NUC noise with the stock cooler.
http://www.silentpcreview.com/article1373-page3.html
http://www.silentpcreview.com/article1315-page4.html
As you can see, both are well below 20dB from two feet away, even doing video encoding (which is one of the higher processor load real world activities). If you run torture test benchmarks (which do not simulate any real world processor load) it starts putting out between 23 and 30dB from that same two feet. That means that from eight feet away, even with torture test type benchmarks running, you're probably talking about a maximum of 24dB, which would be completely inaudible in my house at any time of day (my lowest measured noisefloor is in the high 20's in the dead of night, usually more like mid 30's).
With almost any real world processor load, you're probably talking about inaudible from more than a foot or two away in any home that doesn't have serious room treatments. The fan might get louder over time, but regular cleaning helps a lot in that regard.
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You're still completely missing the point though. Extraneous noise is intrusive when the music is quiet, or silent, not when it's loud. And noise from a completely different direction to the speakers is more noticeable than noise from the speakers themselves, especially as fan-noise is quite different in character to the pinky-white-noise you get from electronics. If you don't listen to classical music, or acoustic music with a wide dynamic range, I can understand how you might not understand this.
That's what I was talking about: you have your classical music cranked so you can hear the very quiet parts clearly. You wouldn't hear the background amp noise (e.g. hiss) during the loud passages but you might when it gets to the very quiet passages (since the background noise is related to the gain on the amp not the volume of the music). In any case, I haven't had any "reference" amps but I can't imagine it not introducing any noise at all.
I'm curious why you would base your opinion on what "one guy in the Intel forum said" like it is the absolute truth. I'm a guy in a different forum telling you that I'm sitting 2 feet away from one of the PCs I described earlier and I can't hear the fan at all. How close do you plan on sitting next to the PC?
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With the torture test loads, Prime95 and Furmark, the fan noise jumped in both volume and pitch. At full tilt, it emits a hissy and whiny noise. But with normal loads, including a long sequence of video encoding, the noise always remained very low
Mounted on the back of a monitor, the SPL did not drop by more than a decibel, but the overall perception of higher frequency noise dropped so that the subjective impression was of a softer overall sound.
hmmm... I'd still rather pay more for a fanless solution. Or much less for a (still fanless) Raspberry Pi/Squeezebox Touch type solution. Fans always get noisier - is there any data about performance after a year of use?
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hmmm... I'd still rather pay more for a fanless solution. Or much less for a (still fanless) Raspberry Pi/Squeezebox Touch type solution. Fans always get noisier - is there any data about performance after a year of use?
The i3 unit has only been out for about 14 or 15 months, and the Haswells just dropped a few months ago, so I'm not aware of any "1-year later" type reviews (given that the older of the two NUCs has only been out for a little more than a year).
The part of the review that seemed most persuasive to me was "In normal use, you can't hear the fan until your ear is inches from the unit." Those guys are tough to please, so that's high praise from them.
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I'm curious why you would base your opinion on what "one guy in the Intel forum said" like it is the absolute truth.
My initial opinion was formed from JimH of this forum who said the fan was merely quiet, and as moreover he has tinnitus I reasonably deduced that the fan was audible, which makes it a non-starter for me.
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My hearing is very good. The tinnitus is minimal.
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Looks like DrMimosa found a few other noise reviews over here, with different results: http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=87884.msg603294#msg603294
Seems a reasonable range of results - this is a product made down to a price, so there are bound to be issues with product variation and aging to cope with. But if you're going to call it an audiophile product then you have to be absolutely sure you satisfy that class of user - safest way to do it is no fan. "Virtually silent" doesn't cut it. The Logitech Touch manages! I can 24/192 out of mine, s/pdif or USB .. and feed it from MC.
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drmimosa's post is above
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I have the NUC 2820 and an SPL Meter. If you want I can measure how loud it is (or is not). Let me know the test parameters you want.
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I have the NUC 2820 and an SPL Meter. If you want I can measure how loud it is (or is not). Let me know the test parameters you want.
For me a reasonable test would be to see how far away you can hear it from in a quiet room while MC is doing something reasonably heavy like transcoding PCM to DSD realtime. Maybe some convolution too. Let it run for a while before you judge so that heat has a chance to build up and get the fan going. Measuring objectively is harder to do usefully - you probably need to measure the spectrum of the noise, not just an SPL type overall level.
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Great. Measure at 6 feet away? And with the NUC off. Thanks.
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For me a reasonable test would be to see how far away you can hear it from in a quiet room while MC is doing something reasonably heavy like transcoding PCM to DSD realtime. Maybe some convolution too. Let it run for a while before you judge so that heat has a chance to build up and get the fan going. Measuring objectively is harder to do usefully - you probably need to measure the spectrum of the noise, not just an SPL type overall level.
Preferably about 18 months. :)
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No Probs - Will have to do tonight my time and I'll post back.
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fwiw, I measure my ambient noise level at 27db A weighted, using the iAudioTool iPad app - which may well be rubbish. It's 10:30 at night, no traffic, nothing on in the apartment. Nice time to listen to some music.
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Why do you need / want a fan in the first place?
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. A shuttle pc is more money, but fanless and will do video.
Will do video I guess is relative. I don't think you can "really" do video with a fanless pc. The passive GPU and IGPU are really "weak". You might as well just get an Oppo if that is what one is going to use. The Oppo will have a much better picture than any fanless pc. And make sure to "hold your breathe."
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I wouldn't go that far. You can get decent video out of a NUC. It cannot run at the max settings of RO HQ, but it can still run medium to high quality, which is already a great improvement over RO Std and easily on-par with standalone devices.
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Like Andy I am sceptical about noise specs. Home theatre projectors are often described as quiet or very quiet at 30-35 dB, but I find that loud when listening to classical music. Even my present projector which clocks in, I believe, at 26 dB is too loud for quiet listening, so I either switch to a computer monitor or switch all displays off.
The MacMini is decidedly NOT fanless ... unfortunately. It serves as my media server and I normally do not hear the fan but every now and then when the load is heavy it does come on and then it can be quite loud.
PS. Isn't the Benchmark DAC superb!?
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Yup. Red October HQ's regular settings / Lanzcos run fine without a dedicated GPU if the CPU is up-to-date (even low 35W TDP versions e.g. i5 4570T). It doesn't beat the Oppo.
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Fundamentally this is a marketing issue isn't it? The perception of potential noise will be enough to put that audience off whether it is real or not given there seem to be plenty of products that don't have that "problem".
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I have the NUC 2820 and an SPL Meter. If you want I can measure how loud it is (or is not). Let me know the test parameters you want.
0db
I'll test later tonight when it is quieter to see how noticeable the fan is on stock settings but you can turn off the FAN altogether and get a 100% Passive NUC. I've updated my review (http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=87617.msg603393#msg603393)with more info.
EDIT - Updated review after pushing the little NUC for a few hours with no fans.
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Personally I find that whether or not you can run a passively cooled PC depends where you live (I.e. climate) and whether or not you have air con. I live in Sydney Australia like jmone but don't have air con (just ceiling fans) this means while in winter a passively cooled PC would be fine, in summer it would be no go. (Lol even though I find Sydney a bit too cold most of the time).
Having said that I do notice fan noise easily and regularly clean / replace fans and have them running at the slowest speeds possible for the amount of cooling I need, but then you probably at the very least need to clean passively cooled PC's on a regular basis as well to ensure optimal airflow and cooling.
I would say from jriver's perspective that if they intend to create a product that targets potential customers from a wide range climates then active cooling at least needs to be an option.
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I live in Brisbane, so temps are typically warmer than Sydney, and run a passively cooled case plus my place isn't blessed with A/C.
I've got my PC in a HiFi stack with plenty of natural convection potential. I'm running ROSTD, so even on video playback and employing a low TDP CPU the unit tracks along well within recommended temperature limits. The system excludes a graphics card so I've made some build compromises but it works for me.
I've gone for minimalism that echoes Henry Ford, who is supposed to have said "What you don't fit costs nothing and needs no maintenance". Admittedly, heat and cooking the CPU are a risk but I reckon I've got a reasonable balance.
This discussion has forked from a piece of Intel NUC based JRiver hardware and the key question, in my view, is which market will this product typically target? I suspect that most adopters of MC come in via the audio path rather than video, TV or image and then audio. Many of the discerning audiophile or fringe audiophile population will probably hold at least an initial aversion to hardware that incorporates a fan.
The base market treatment alternatives available are that you can do what many seem to be trying to do here and convince this market sector that they've got it wrong or you can offer choice, e.g.
- Entry level audio and general purpose video - would get the base NUC unit with fan
- Audiophile level - gets NUC hardware with a fanless case (attracts a price premium)
Here's one that jmone prepared earlier to provide an example of what's available off the shelf ... today:
(http://cdn2.bigcommerce.com/server2800/c3c77/products/287/images/1050/FrontISO_NoAntenna__74587.1391519951.1000.1200.jpg?c=1)
http://www.tranquilpcshop.co.uk/abel-h2-chassis/ (http://www.tranquilpcshop.co.uk/abel-h2-chassis/)
That kind of presentation should also satisfy an audiophile's desire for cool looking gear that matches their existing stack. Looks should not be underestimated. Brands in this "space", like Sonos, forked their design heritage from Apple (if I'm right) and they applied that education to advantage.
The cues are there. It's just a case of whether there is a desire to pick up on them. Overlooking them may come at the cost of missing out on the market the product is attempting to reach.
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Agreed Brisbane is warmer and more humid (grew up in Brissy), so if it's possible to have a low power / TDP PC there then it should be most places, but if you are wanting to do more demanding Video playback using ROHQ with higher settings you might still have issues if your are wanting to use hardware similar to what's in Gigabyte BRIX Pro (i.e. i7-4770R with iris pro hd 5200) the NUC form factor might be an issue for passive cooling as the anandtech review stated the was throttling under heavy load even with a fan.
Guess it comes down to compromises (I.e. performance vs form factor / size vs type of cooling vs cost) and whether the target customer is just audiophiles or others that are after video using with some of the more demanding MadVR goodies....
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0db
I'll test later tonight when it is quieter to see how noticeable the fan is on stock settings but you can turn off the FAN altogether and get a 100% Passive NUC. I've updated my review (http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=87617.msg603393#msg603393)with more info.
EDIT - Updated review after pushing the little NUC for a few hours with no fans.
Ok - My sound metre does not go below 50DB so I calibrated one for the phone (for what it is worth), and according to that we had a room down to around the low 30DB, but it was unable to detect the difference with the NUC On or Off....and until this test I've never noticed how "loud" birds tweeting can be! We even had to turn off a fridge in an adjacent room as it was producing more "noise" than the NUC.
So my "real" SPL was my teenage son (you know the ones that play those high pitched sounds on the phone we oldies can not hear!).
Interestingly he could not hear the fan at all till I got him to listen to right at the back of the NUC to register the sound, then move back till he could not hear it. Once he was focused on the sound he could hear it at the default 3,000 rpm anywhere in the room (max 4m).... as long as you held your breath or there was not any other noise (like those birds that kept tweeting!). I'd say it was the equivalent of someone breathing but like a more constant exhale (so less intrusive). When I turned the fan down to 670 RPM he was unable to hear it at any range (say outside putting your ear next to the port to 30cm). Obviously with the fan off there was no noise at all though he thought that with his ear pressed to the case there may have been the odd tick (expansion?).
So my summary on the NUC 2820 sound pressure levels is:
- Default Settings: Perfectly Fine for the vast majority of users, esp in normal rooms with any ambient noise. In such environments I'd rate it is inaudible at normal seating distances.
- Tweak to lower (or no) RMP: Ideal for those sensitive to any noise in very quiet rooms. The NUC will happily run at minimum RPM with 100% load but I found with this load and the fan off, it would trip the thermal trap and throttle the CPU after an hour or so (heat soak).
To me it is an intriguing unit as it is:
- Cheap
- Small
- Good connectivity
- Powerful enough to Run a full blown MC instance for all audio and video (RO Std) playback
- Low power draw
- Quiet at stock fan speeds and inaudible if you tweak the speeds.
You could get the more powerful i3/i5 NUC and the fancy (but beautiful) passive Aluminium Case from Tranquil but it is then triple the cost, though value is in the eye (or ear) of the beholder.
I've updated my review on this.
Hope it helps.
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You could get the more powerful i3/i5 NUC and the fancy (but beautiful) passive Aluminium Case from Tranquil but it is then triple the cost, though value is in the eye (or ear) of the beholder.
Seriously, that Al NUC case looks way pro ... sound AND vision ... that's a winner.. ;)
Ok - My sound metre does not go below 50DB so I calibrated one for the phone (for what it is worth), and according to that we had a room down to around the low 30DB ...
That sound measuring device must be calibrated to SI standard .. and from a guy (who quite rightly, I might add) refers to the 'C' in MC as Centre.
A fixation perhaps? :D
Just blame auto correct and tell us you were working from a tablet (I would) ... ;)
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I know! The case looks great and I wish they would make one for the 2820! I'd drop the A$150 on it no probs just because! ... and I agree on the SPL app - waste of time but that is all I had to get any measurement as my real SPL does not go lower - so I calibrated it vs my SPL metre at 60 DB so they read the same.
Also not an error on the "re" vs "er" (but why miss an opportunity to tease the Yanks!) ;D
Metre - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metre
The metre (International spelling as used by the International Bureau of Weights and Measures)
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About Shuttle computers - I'm a fan from way back, and have just assembled an SH16V
http://us.shuttle.com/barebone/Models/XH61V.html
It has an external fanless power supply , looks sweet and is silent. Two small fans internally and a liquid heat-sink.
Unfortunately, the optical output only goes up to 96kHz (other Shuttles reach 192), but otherwise is perfect (for me anyway).
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I'm also a big fan of the SFF and I'm on my Third version for my main HTPC as you can cram a full blown GPU into them. The NUC however is a different form factor again.
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jmone,
Very useful and informative. Thank you, your son, and the birds.
Jim
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Personally I find that whether or not you can run a passively cooled PC depends where you live (I.e. climate) and whether or not you have air con. I live in Sydney Australia like jmone but don't have air con (just ceiling fans) this means while in winter a passively cooled PC would be fine, in summer it would be no go. (Lol even though I find Sydney a bit too cold most of the time).
Having said that I do notice fan noise easily and regularly clean / replace fans and have them running at the slowest speeds possible for the amount of cooling I need, but then you probably at the very least need to clean passively cooled PC's on a regular basis as well to ensure optimal airflow and cooling.
If you have air-con or ceiling fans running, the extra silence from not having a fan in the HTPC, would be (well) stunning... ;)
+++
If you are looking for a CPU cooler fan with the lowest possible noise level, you need to look at the Austrian company Noctua, who specializes in this.
I have a Noctua fan in my home built HTPC. It was expensive but certainly well worth it.
http://www.noctua.at/
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I wouldn't go that far. You can get decent video out of a NUC. It cannot run at the max settings of RO HQ, but it can still run medium to high quality, which is already a great improvement over RO Std and easily on-par with standalone devices.
No. It's no match for the Oppo 103. The only area are subtitles which are superior. In every other category the Oppo clearly has a better picture. I have done the comparison on 4 different televisons now at my buddies an my home. It's better than my 2006 Panasonic BD-10 player. I am determined to BEAT the Oppo no matter what. I know for certain you can not do that with passive cooling or low performance card. Really some might just want to buy the Oppo, with no fans and run the passively cooled HTPC through the Oppo. It's that good on video. But again, I am determined to beat it.
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Personally I find that whether or not you can run a passively cooled PC depends where you live (I.e. climate) and whether or not you have air con. I live in Sydney Australia like jmone but don't have air con (just ceiling fans) this means while in winter a passively cooled PC would be fine, in summer it would be no go. (Lol even though I find Sydney a bit too cold most of the time).
Having said that I do notice fan noise easily and regularly clean / replace fans and have them running at the slowest speeds possible for the amount of cooling I need, but then you probably at the very least need to clean passively cooled PC's on a regular basis as well to ensure optimal airflow and cooling.
I would say from jriver's perspective that if they intend to create a product that targets potential customers from a wide range climates then active cooling at least needs to be an option.
I agree. However, with audiophiles, fans will be a problem regardless of whether it is even audible. The subject of fans and HTPCs came up at friend's home recently, a fellow audiophile though I don't think I'm totally in the club. He was really upset at the idea of fans when I mentioned building an HTPC for him and myself. I pointed out that the television set he has owned has a fan, as well as his Blu-ray player in and second player in his audio system, an Oppo 95. He'd never really taken notice of the Oppo and that it had a fan in the several years he's owned it. Now, this is BIG problem. He's buying the Oppo 105 now because it does not have a fan. He's a former musician and there is no way his damaged hearing could ever hear the fan. Everything is always so loud in his set-up.
Think about it. There are fights about power cables, flac vs wav, memory playback. These are things that it is difficult to prove have an effect. A fan?! Something you can see spinning and place your ear so close to it that you CAN hear it? There is no way, even a fan that has less noise than human breathing will be acceptable for many audiophiles. Just the though of a fan will be too much.
I decided to buy, well I ordered one, a Noiseblocker fan to test myself, like I have done with power cables, speaker cables, and various other thing, to see first hand. Sometimes the audiophiles are right even when I can't explain why. Like with the HDMI out of the Oppo. My lap top sounds significantly better outputting JRiver over HDMI than does the Oppo. Power cables?? My buddy is still angry with me because I refuse to try for a second time the power cords that cost several thousand dollars in my system. Tried them, heard no difference. I was DONE. Now he's like," You think I'm stupid with these power cords." I don't say anything. I just look. What I really want to do is give him my best Scooby Doo laugh, eeeeee hehehhehehe, eeeee hehehhehe, and tell him what what he already knows I think.
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I don't say anything. I just look. What I really want to do is give him my best Scooby Doo laugh, eeeeee hehehhehehe, eeeee hehehhehe, and tell him what what he already knows I think.
Scoob is such a cool dog.
The rest of your anecdote is an excellent example of why there's sense in not fighting when you've got a person who's commited to their beliefs, regardless of the evidence put in front of them. So, Oppo offer choice of a fan equipped and fanless unit with the latter selling at a premium. Consumer wins, Oppo wins, friend of consumer chuckles away like a cartoon character .. that last bit sounds like a win to me .. everyone's happy... ;D
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Power cables?? My buddy is still angry with me because I refuse to try for a second time the power cords that cost several thousand dollars in my system. Tried them, heard no difference. I was DONE. Now he's like," You think I'm stupid with these power cords."
Sounds like he isn't convinced and was looking for validation.
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Ok, I recieved a very quiet fan, the Noiseblocker M12-s1. They rate it at at about 8db. I cut the wires and hooked it directly up to my 12 volt Radio Shack power supply. Well, I can hear it. I got crazy and went into a closet, shut the door and put the fan into the corner on the floor. I can hear low fan noise, typical fan motor noise, at about 1 foot. At 3 feet or so, I can not hear the fan. To put this into perspective, I can hear my two fingers, my thumb and forefinger rubbing gently together at arms length. I can not hear the fan at that distance. I think for a fan like this to be audible at any reasonable distance it would need some "help", in the form of a secondary object like a shelf of something creating a resonance. Even the act of sipping some coffee or a picking up a glass and setting it down will be louder than that fan. My external hard drivers are considerably more noisy as well. There is some "audiophile" in me that wishes I could not hear the fan at any distance even if it's not audible at 3 feet :) to my ears.
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Fans in a PC usually don't run at 100%, try running it at 7V instead.
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I cut the wires and hooked it directly up to my 12 volt Radio Shack power supply. Well, I can hear it.
These two things are related.
New fans will use pulse-width modulation (PWM) to control the fan-speed rather than always running at 12V or dropping the voltage to control the speed.
This allows them to hit much lower RPMs without stalling. My 1200 RPM Noctuas will only hit about 600 RPM minimum speed if I drop the voltages, but will go down to 300 RPM when PWM is used to control the fan speed.
Noctua fans are the only ones which I have heard so far that I would call close to being "silent".
Every other fan I have used has some kind of obvious mechanical noise, whether they are being voltage controlled or PWM controller.
As far as PWM fans go, the Noctuas are the only ones I can tolerate. With all the other PWM fans I have used, I hear a "pulsing" noise as the speed is reduced and I preferred to drop the voltage instead, even though that meant running at a higher RPM.
If you don't need much in the way of cooling, these running at 300 RPM are by far the quietest fans I have found: http://noctua.at/main.php?show=productview&products_id=57&lng=en (http://noctua.at/main.php?show=productview&products_id=57&lng=en)
They are designed for quiet airflow rather than static pressure, so they probably won't do a great job on a heatsink.
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The rest of your anecdote is an excellent example of why there's sense in not fighting when you've got a person who's commited to their beliefs, regardless of the evidence put in front of them. So, Oppo offer choice of a fan equipped and fanless unit with the latter selling at a premium. Consumer wins, Oppo wins, friend of consumer chuckles away like a cartoon character .. that last bit sounds like a win to me .. everyone's happy... ;D
This thread is quite an amusing example of mutual incomprehension.
Someone who lives in a house with noisy air conditioning and ceiling fans and listens to low dynamic range music is obviously not going to be bothered by fan noise.
If you listen in a quiet environment to music which occasionally has a wide dynamic range it is perfectly reasonable to expect audiophile (allegedly) equipment to make no audible mechanical (usually mains hum) or electronic noise, whatever the source. Of course there are is lots of expensive audio equipment that fails this requirement, which demonstrates that a lot of buyers (possibly most) don't care, for whatever reason.
Personally, apart from loudspeakers, none of my equipment is in the room where I listen. Partly because of the possibility of mechanical noise, but mainly because it's an eyesore. My JRiver computer (which is an ordinary PC with a quiet, but not silent, fan) is in the garage.
If this device is aimed at the mass market, a fan is fine. If it's aimed at a small sector of the audiophile market it would be sensible to make a fan optional, although, given the tiny market of those who would care, it probably isn't worth bothering with them!
I do find the posts implying that anyone concerned about mechanical noise is imagining things somewhat bizarre. I know that fans are usually audible but I am well aware that fans can be quiet to the point of inaudibility if implemented carefully. Experience shows that such implementation is very rare.
If you want to poke fun at audiophiles' mistaken perceptions you could start with this http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=88100.0. Record companies reselling music that would be perfectly adequately carried in a properly dithered 10 bit 32kHz channel being sold at 24 bit 96kHz.
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I think that is right. There are several market segments and each have their own requirements (and potential volumes). When/if JR release a product it will find it's own market (or fail).
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Fans in a PC usually don't run at 100%, try running it at 7V instead.
The Noiseblocker M12-s1 only runs at one speed 750rpm. Some of the other variants will change speed but the speed settings are all higher rpm, if memory serves than 750. I knew this going in. It will not start at some lower voltages, you will only run at that speed from what I read. It's a quite fan. I think I could stand at 3 or 4 feet and turn it on and off and most people might here the switch I was using, but I doubt they would hear the fan.
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This thread is quite an amusing example of mutual incomprehension.
...
If this device is aimed at the mass market, a fan is fine. If it's aimed at a small sector of the audiophile market it would be sensible to make a fan optional, although, given the tiny market of those who would care, it probably isn't worth bothering with them!
I do find the posts implying that anyone concerned about mechanical noise is imagining things somewhat bizarre. I know that fans are usually audible but I am well aware that fans can be quiet to the point of inaudibility if implemented carefully. Experience shows that such implementation is very rare.
If you want to poke fun at audiophiles' mistaken perceptions you could start with this http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=88100.0 (http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=88100.0). Record companies reselling music that would be perfectly adequately carried in a properly dithered 10 bit 32kHz channel being sold at 24 bit 96kHz.
Well put.
Personally, my HTPC is fanless and it sits on the top shelf of my HiFi stack in the living room.
I've seen and read plenty of forum discussions around the interweb full of technobabble for views for and against a particular issue or idea. My intent wasn't to poke fun at anyone in particular. If I'm poking fun, it's probably at myself but I wasn't necessarily spelling it out.
My offering was to ask why not provide a choice and respect the decision of the consumer to make a product selection that satisfy the views and beliefs they hold personally? I think that's good business provided the cost base is covered. In the Oppo example, the guy trading in his fan equipped unit for a fanless one believes it's good value. He (she?) is getting enjoyment from the process. Good on them.
As a side note, my audio collection is lossless Redbook. So, your comment about different formats got a chuckle and a thumbs up from me.. ;)