Ok - good to get readings like this. If your room is around this level, you will hear it.
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Mac Studio Max - it's not that quiet
- Thread starter sixers22
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Sorry to hear that. I think I’ll be in the same boat soon.
The smaller blower fans tend to be more unpleasant than large fans used in PCs. If the Mac Pro didn’t have the blower fan, I’d get it as the large fans are fine
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From my understanding the idle fans are on all the time (albeit it at a minimal) because it needs to cool the power supply
It seems the advantage to this design though is that it wont run hot at all (meaning no significant fan surge under high demanding tasks)
Maybe we can't have it all (just yet). Personally, I'd rather have a low constant idle fan running than the fans jumping all the time interfering with productivity and flow state.
It seems the advantage to this design though is that it wont run hot at all (meaning no significant fan surge under high demanding tasks)
Maybe we can't have it all (just yet). Personally, I'd rather have a low constant idle fan running than the fans jumping all the time interfering with productivity and flow state.
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My Studio will be a while before it arrives, but I got the Decibel X app to see what the background noise of my room will be like. The dog is snoozing in his bed (as he usually is when I'm working) and the app is reporting average 33.4 and max 43 with his snoring. LOL so I'm guessing I'll only notice the fan noise when the dog is awake and bugging me to take him for a walk
FWIW, I have to bend down in my chair and put my ear closer than 1 foot from my M1 Ultra to hear its fan in a room as quiet as any I've ever been in. Even then I have to put my ear to the side of the Mac and not in front of it to hear anything at all. I have a monitor about 6" behind the Mac so that reflects its sound back toward me. The noise from the M1 Max must be different because I can't imagine anyone complaining about what I'm hearing from the Ultra, or even being aware of it.
I believe quite a few people have commented the Ultra is silent and there seems to be some who say the Max is loud and others who don’t think it is. So no consensus there.
I posted in another thread what probably should go in this one:
I have an M1 Max Studio. Measured with Decibel X on my iPhone.
I'm getting 40 dB held right up to the computer. Computer off, 38 dB.
For reference, pointing the mic at me a few feet away I got 35 dB, putting it up to my air purifier, 45 dB.
With my room as dead quiet as possible, the Studio is noisy enough to bother me a bit, and there is a bit of a whistling quality to the fan noise as opposed to more of a whoosh, like my Dyson air filter.
I don't think this is going to cause me problems--and I record guitars and vocals with some very sensitive mics in here, but after making these observations I moved the studio a bit farther a way from me on my desk.
I have an M1 Max Studio. Measured with Decibel X on my iPhone.
I'm getting 40 dB held right up to the computer. Computer off, 38 dB.
For reference, pointing the mic at me a few feet away I got 35 dB, putting it up to my air purifier, 45 dB.
With my room as dead quiet as possible, the Studio is noisy enough to bother me a bit, and there is a bit of a whistling quality to the fan noise as opposed to more of a whoosh, like my Dyson air filter.
I don't think this is going to cause me problems--and I record guitars and vocals with some very sensitive mics in here, but after making these observations I moved the studio a bit farther a way from me on my desk.
I guess I don't understand. The Max is reading 40, but when it is off it reads 38? Having just shut it down, or after it has stopped running any fans? Because w. the computer off, any reading of 38 would be room noise, and not the computer....
And then you say you read 35 and your purifier reads 45, which puts the Studio in the middle, yet, "noisy enough to bother me a bit".
Those statements seem to contradict themselves a bit.
Must just be different machines have different sounding fans. I can definitely easily hear my Ultra in a quiet room when fans are at idle /1330 rpm. That’s when I’m at my desk and it’s at the back of my desk.
my '18 Intel i7 Mini dB level easily gets in the mid to upper 50's (from around 6" pointed at the back) when pushed, which doesn't take much these days. the small fan and ducting don't help.
Well, I'll try to be as straight and clear with the data as possible then. Initial conditions:
Mac Studio M1 Max on my desk, about 30" directly in front of me, powered on. Dyson purifier/fan (the one with a heater also) set on automatic (I usually power it down when I record stuff though it will not actually make an audible difference on tape, esp once you gate the track). That appliance, the loudest contributor to the room's ambient spl, is placed about eight feet behind me to my right. My room is treated and pretty dead. Measuring with Decibel X app on my iPhone.
Measurement 1: point the mic directly at the front right corner of the studio chassis. ~40 dB.
Measurement 2: point the mic directly at my chest where I am seated. ~35 dB.
Measurement 3: walk over to the purifier and point the mic directly at it. ~45 dB.
Measurement 4: turn OFF the Studio and measure same point as in (1): ~38 dB.
Measurement 5: turn OFF the Dyson to see if it affects ambient spl at same point as (1,4): ~38 dB.
All of the measurements are meaningless, however I don’t see anything contradictory.
The room background noise is between 35 and 38dB, depending on the position of the microphone, as measured with a very imprecise instrument (an un calibrated app on a phone).
The only relevant information is that the noise is enough to bother the op a little.
I also have a small music studio, and any noise that is audible will be easily picked up and recorded by every condenser microphone. So my observation is that if you can hear it you will record it, and that is not quite good enough for me.
Yeah, I think you’ll be ok.
The iMac Pro would like to have a word with you
That to me is a bit contradictory in that you are saying that what you hear is ultimately what matters as opposed to data on paper or measured by an instrument--whether scientifically accurate or not. I wholeheartedly agree but provided unscientific measurements at another's suggestion, and I don't think they are entirely irrelevant as loose points of reference. Then you say that it's not quite good enough to record something that you can hear--but if you can't hear it on tape, why does that matter? That 35 dB sound will be so deeply buried that no dog can hear it, especially if the sound source and mics are well placed.
Anywho, these things can be reasonably debated and disagreed upon, though they aren't really relevant to the original question posed in the thread--especially the question of what is good enough for you vs. what is good enough for me, which nobody asked. You come across a bit as another self-aggrandizing stranger on the internet.
I hear a noise with the ultra as well, but I don't think that buzzing or whirling noise I hear is the fans... When I put the computer to sleep after the fans turn off, I still can hear the light whining or whistling beeping noise.
is this a similar sound to what you hear? I was going to try and relocate on my desk as well, but idk.
Well, thanks for the “self-aggrandising” comment. I am not sure what I said to deserve it, when my reply (to someone else) was meant to mainly defend your original post. Next time I’ll mind my own business.
All I was saying is that if you can hear a noise, your condenser microphones will hear it better than you can, and you will record it. I know this, and if you run a studio you know it too. Nothing “self-aggrandizing” about stating this basic fact.
Obviously, in a normal situation, the ratio between signal (i.e. the music you are recording) to noise (i.e. the Dyson and the Mac Studio) is all that matter, and a strong enough signal will make the background noise less relevant.
Maybe I'm being overly sensitive but I felt a bit climbed-over by your post. I think it's a very common thing on internet forums for people to try to come across as alpha, and I kinda felt that from you. Maybe I'm wrong, I don't know you. No big deal. I don't take issue with any of your opinions.
Back to the original subject, the Max is not noisy in my opinion but not dead silent. When I fixate on it (because I was inspired to by this thread), the sound can bother me a bit but the usual ambient noise of my air purifier pretty much completely masks it. For all I know, past computers I've used were equally loud and I never noticed. I am a DIY recordist/mixer and while there is no such thing as an absolute zero-noise environment or computer, I tend to my environment and certainly don't willfully introduce extraneous noise to my recordings, so I'm a tad unnerved to fixate on and hear a slight whistling fan noise emanating from my Mac Studio. Once I get to actually recording some audio on this computer--I'm waiting for a new Thunderbolt cable to arrive that I need to connect my audio interface--I will be a bit more vigilant about whether or not the Studio's fan noise is polluting my recordings. But given how I typically place my mics in relation to where the computer sits and the levels of the sources I record, I expect it will not matter one whit in the end, which is to say that there will be no humanly audible difference between what I can hear on a soloed recorded track versus what I would hear if the computer produced 0 dB spl, and I will be able to crank up the preamp and not hear any fan coming through my headphones while I'm not playing. And that will be good enough for me. YMMV.
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Of course it's correct, because it's a subjective matter. It depends on your hearing, workload, ambient noise and distance from the computer. It may be louder but that's because you can hear the loudness.
What other M1 Mac are you comparing to?
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I have tried it. And other similar apps too. Decibel X’s own description says “Standard measurement range from 30dBA up to 130dBA”.
In other words, below 30db it doesn’t function.
I’ve been a professional audio engineer for the last 25 years and I’m just trying to help you and others around here understand the limits of sound metering.
Whenever the subject of computer noise comes up, people often try to make measurements and unintentionally post misleading results. Common scenario: Trying to measure the noise of a 25db fan in a seemingly quiet room that actually has 40db of background noise with a meter that doesn’t work below 30db.
I use NIOSH Sound Level Meter. It’s the most accurate app from the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health according to this study. Better than Decibel X. I manage to go below 30dB with my iPhone 7 with it.
I have max version and was considering returning it due to fan noise issues. However, I decided not to return it after doing a few tests today. I thought the fan speed was too high at idle and I manually set it to the lowest rpm at 1100 and the noticeable noise went away. Also, I did some video editing at the lowest RPM, but the CPU and GPU temperatures did not differ from the system automatic settings. Even when running the benchmark at the lowest fan speed, the maximum CPU temperature did not exceed 60 degrees celsius. I think Apple set the fan speed too high. If like me, you think noise is a problem, I recommended to lower the fan speed
Your phone’s microphone is the limiting factor in measurement resolution, not the app software. A momentary drop in the sound levels you are measuring could yield a result below 30db, depending on how the app is programmed. Unfortunate these result simply can’t be trusted.
I’ve used some high end spl meters in my recording studio (which is rated to below NC-15) and they all say “error” when the spl drops below a minimum threshold. It’s common for $2000+ sound meters to bottom out at 30db, and these devices are much more sensitive than your phone mic.
It would be great if iPhones could take measurements below 30db accurately, but unfortunately they can’t. Iphones have a useful magnifying function too, but they can’t zoom in enough to show you bacteria for example. Wrong tool for the job.
This thread has officially gone to _____.
if you read that link, table III shows. both the NIOSH SLM and dBX are pretty inaccurate when measuring 25 dB.