Dear all,
There has been much discussion on DSP solutions for M2 clones and other setups. After having tried many different DSP units I do recommend using BSS units as I believe that their algorithms are superior. They are reasonable priced on the second hand market and very flexible. Not mentioning that for M2 cloners you can just dump the original downloaded JBL DSP file straight into them.
But this was not to be a fire speech over use of DSP, but fan noise reduction .
For those of you having looked at using BSS units and may have shy away due to the fan noise there is salvation.
The older line of Motorola based units Soundweb 3008-9088 and their offspring all have one 5v 40x40mm exhaust fan at either side.
The newer BLU16 & BLU80 also has one exhaust fan, while the bigger BLU160 and BLU800 chassis have 4 fans, two on each side. I have not had BLU100 or BLU50 units so I don’t know about them.
In all of these chassis there are Sunon 40x40mm fans that are pretty high rev and do make considerable noise.
There are many fan manufacturers that would be able to sell replacement fans and my favourite brand is Papst. They do make wonderful quality fans in all shapes and sizes and they do provide detailed specs so you know what you get, including credible noise specs.
However in these BSS units I have successfully replaced the original fans with silent Noctua computer fans. I thought they only provided 12V fans but Eureka, Noctua actually do a 40x40mm 5V fan that can be ordered on the internet..
http://noctua.at/en/products/fan/nf-a4x10-5v
The Noctua fans come in a complete kit with mounting HW. They are 3-pin configuration but here we only need red and black leads, the yellow can be cut. The cables are covered with shrink sleeve towards the contact and that will have to come off to get to the leads.
The simplest way is to cut away the Noctua contact and move the original BSS contact from the Sunon fan and just connect them (color on color) using the included cable joints in the package.
As the original Noctua contact is three pin and actually fits the BSS mother board, an alternative is to change the pin configuration in the supplied Noctua original contact so it matches the original BSS pin out. This is done by using a small screwdriver to gently press on the side of the black Noctua contact to release the actual metal contact and pull it out backwards. Remove the yellow contact (cut it off) and move the red lead to the “yellow” position so the centre is empty and the red and black is on each side. Please see attached picture.
On the BLU160 and BLU800’s I used two Noctua exhaust fans (right hand side by the Power supply) and just disconnected inlet fans on the left side. In these the fan contact is different so you will need to use the original BSS contact and cut the cables to join the old BSS contact with the new Noctua fan.
I had my BLU160 (to be used with Compact Monitor) connected on idle for 2 days with just the two Noctua exhaust fans running and there was absolutely no heat build-up. And considerably less noise.
A word of caution ! If the BLU160/BLU800 units are used in a very tight space, limited access to fresh air, heat build up from other units or in a warm location each owner needs to check that two exhaust fans are enough to keep the units cool. When I took the lid off mine after 2 full days the chips were not even felt warm when I put my thumb on them.
I know that Mr Widget in a different thread mentioned that they sometimes run BSS units with all the fans disconnected and the lid of and that should beperfectly fine.
This alternative is a rather cost effective alternative and it may be more soothing for the mind knowing that the brain in your multi thousand dollar system is not totally exposed to mother nature.
Kind regards
//RoB
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