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Mac studio v1 fan noise - it's going to be one of the loudest Macs at idle.

JohannesO said:
You can’t rely on people’s ears. Witnesses are known for bad contributors to truth.
1. Max bto whined
2. Max refurbished whines (now inside under table mount)
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I did a recording from 1 foot away from the front of my Studio and it picked up the air coming from the back of the Studio. I can't hear any noise from one foot from the front of the Studio. So I moved the microphone two feet away and the sound doesn't come through the microphone in my recording sessions.

I typically amplify the sound to 400% for finished videos so I think that it would be noticeable there. It is always possible that it happens down the road but it's also possible that Apple has fixed the problem or that it's a particular component vendor. I bought mine at the store so that I could do an easy return if it had the problem on initial boot.

I think that it would be rather awful for those buying BTO, waiting for it to arrive, getting the problem, returning it and then having to order another. I have been seeing fewer posts about it in the long thread lately so maybe things are getting better. If I were paranoid, then I guess I'd order two of them and then return one if they are both good or if only one is good. It increases the odds of getting a solution without the problem.
 
Another anecdote to add to the list…

I picked up a Studio Ultra today (the base model Ultra). The idea was to test it out in my home studio (music and film work), before deciding whether to spec the exact machine I’d want.

Started off well. There was a very slight idle “on” noise. Not too dissimilar to the Mac Pro.

But after 30 mins, installing some software and running a few tests, the whine appeared 🤬. It’s not “loud” as such, but in a very quiet environment (my studio is super silent), it is certainly irritating.

Think I’m going to revert to my original plan… a new maxed out MBP with external display. The 16” M1 Pro I currently have is literally silent.
 
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Shadow Puppets said:
Another anecdote to add to the list…

I picked up a Studio Ultra today (the base model Ultra). The idea was to test it out in my home studio (music and film work), before deciding whether to spec the exact machine I’d want.

Started off well. There was a very slight idle “on” noise. Not too dissimilar to the Mac Pro.

But after 30 mins, installing some software and running a few tests, the whine appeared 🤬. It’s not “loud” as such, but in a very quiet environment (my studio is super silent), it is certainly irritating.

Think I’m going to revert to my original plan… a new maxed out MBP with external display. The 16” M1 Pro I currently have is literally silent.
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Before you do buddy, try downloading Macs Fan Control and lowering the fan speed to random numbers below 1300 - there's usually a point at which it disappears entirely, on mine the sweet spot is about 1120. I've also found that a small cloth draped over the back kills the sound without affecting the cooling performance.
 
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AJ94 said:
Before you do buddy, try downloading Macs Fan Control and lowering the fan speed to random numbers below 1300 - there's usually a point at which it disappears entirely, on mine the sweet spot is about 1120. I've also found that a small cloth draped over the back kills the sound without affecting the cooling performance.
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That’s a kludge
 
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I've been back and fourth to the Apple Store and literally had everything replaced from the logic board and psu board to the fan. As a last resort, I asked if they could replace the casing because I too could place a cloth over the holes on the back end and the high pitch sound would disappear. Funny enough, it went way for about 2 weeks and then came right back again!

Now, I just set the Mac Studio on the floor at the back part of the desk and taped a moving blanket on the underside separating the front from the back of the desk and I hear nothing more than fan noise. However. if your constantly plugging and unplugging things in the the Studio, I wouldn't suggest this.
 
designerdave72 said:
I think if I had to do this for a computer just to get it to be silent or work properly I’d of killed myself by now!
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One of my backup plans if the Studio didn't work out was to use 2 Mac minis. I can partition my workload to do this though it would make a few things inconvenient. I haven't sold my mini yet so I'm actually using them together. The Studio drives 3x4k monitors and the mini runs a program that will only work on the primary monitor and this combination works well.
 
pshufd said:
One of my backup plans if the Studio didn't work out was to use 2 Mac minis. I can partition my workload to do this though it would make a few things inconvenient. I haven't sold my mini yet so I'm actually using them together. The Studio drives 3x4k monitors and the mini runs a program that will only work on the primary monitor and this combination works well.
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Vienna Ensemble Pro would work for utilizing two Mac Minis but it really only makes sense if you’re working with sets of orchestral instruments and the such.
 
dlopan said:
MIne is completely noise free. I have 3 external drives that make a lot of noise.
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Posts like this don’t help the situation at all. NONE of the Studios are completely silent (I’ve now tried 3 separate models). They all exhibit light fan noise which is clearly audible in a quiet room (ie a home music studio). They may not exhibit the whine issue (although all 3 of the ones I’ve tested now have), but none of them are silent (like the MBP 16” M1 Max). I suspect your external drives are just drowning it out.
 
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dlopan said:
I tried when I installed the studio without the externals. nearly dead silent, no whine
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What’s the ambient sound level like in your room? Mine is basically silent, and all 3 studios were noticeably on and adding noise. Not “loud” as such, but certainly nowhere near silent enough for a silent recording room.
 
Sharky II said:
!!! NOBODY'S IS COMPLETELY NOISE FREE UNLESS IT IS TURNED OFF ¡¡¡​
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Precisely! It’s just an outright lie to claim that it’s silent. It is not. The fans are constantly running and making a general whirring “on” noise at all times. That is absolute fact. Whether you can hear it in your setup / whether it bothers you is a different question.
 
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I will add that every time when picking up the Mac studio from the Apple Store, i had the genius/specialist turn on the studio to verify the issue being resolved… and I could never for the life of me hear any issue even when putting my ear on the back of the mac studio. I literally would think it was “silent.”

However, at home where I have a quiet environment(and before my current solution), I’d turn it back on and the sound would come right back within minutes. It would wake me up in bed in the middle of the night with its high pitch sound coming from across the room. It made me wonder if I had tinnitus as I’d wake up with a ringing sound in my ears.

Atmosphere makes a big difference with the issue. Another solution I used before was turning on ambient sounds with the dark sounds app to overpower the whine noise. Even at 15% volume, it was sufficient to mask it. However, the sound by itself in a very quiet room was excruciating to hear for me.

In fact, one time when I took the computer in for repair, I was told that people over 40 cannot hear certain frequencies and pitches which could explain why some individuals don’t hear it.

Either way, for those of us that do hear the sound, it can be very disturbing. I’ve had gaming computers with 8 fans, old school Mac laptops that rev up super loud when under heavy load, none of that has the high pitch sound that my Mac Studio creates.
 
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Received my new (not a refurb) base Max Studio on Dec 19th. Just reporting that besides the fan whooshing slightly if I get really close to it, I haven't noticed any whine (yet). I do have tinnitus in both ears so I guess I'm used to that kind of noise though - have learned to block it out most of the time. I have the Studio mounted under the desk with a desk mount from OWC (NewerTech I think). It's only 2 or so feet from my left ear. Pardon the wiring mess in photo - have cleaned stuff up a bit since :)

So far so good, but time will tell.

Noise and frequencies are certainly different for people (like taste is) and I have sympathy with all who have had problems with the Studio. For me it's the perfect Mac right now and I hope it doesn't start to whine. I really love it and it blows away the M1 mini I traded in.

There have been enough complaints about the Studio whine that I hesitated to get one. There apparently are a bunch of crappy units out there. Maybe Apple has silently resolved it? Will report back if it goes south and get noisy.

Hell, I bought a G4 MDD Windtunnel back in the day when they came out and spent more time and money on that trying to quiet it down than I care to admit. This one I can't work on :)

IMG_2239.jpeg
 
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I have now also returned my second Mac Studio. Not because of the noise - with the mounting under the table it was ok, but because I decided to travel with Mac. My just received MacBook Pro 16" Max 10/24 is quieter under continuous full load than the Studio at idle.
 
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Just one data point for those worried about Mac Studio developing whine over time. I've had my Ultra since the day Apple introduced the Studio 10 months ago, and it still has no whine. (I've put up noise spectrum plots before to show that.)

Not here to argue with anyone that has whine, sorry for them, but just want to let anyone worried about that know that mine has not developed whine over time.

I've had several dozen desktop Macs (only one iMac) since they were first introduced in 1984, and this is probably the quietest of them (I have to put my ear inches away from back to hear the fans at all in a very, very quiet room).
 
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