The fan I ordered in post #29 came in and I hooked it up. It's fine outside of the case, put it in the amp case and it's as loud as the OEM. That's actually a smidge below factory CFM rating and so I don't know that I'd go any lower. What this means to me is that this amp is not going to work for those of you who desire a 'silent' amp through a fan mod for home theater - certaintly not in stock config. I've tried multiple modifications and two aftermarket fans and I can't quiet this amp down because of the heatsink design. I've got one more trick up my sleeve which is mounting the OEM fan outside the case (rather than inside the case). The problem with all of these fans is that when you get them close to that gigantic wall of a heatsink inside the case it makes WAY more noise. So far the stock fan has been as good as any of the aftermarket 'quieter' fans I've tried when put in place inside the amp chasis. In this context it's not the actual amount of airflow that is the noise, but rather the turbulence the fan rotors create against the heatsink. My plan of moving the fan outside the case moves the fan blades away from the heatsink, but won't sacrifice air movement. If this works I'll take pictures and such. I have some pics and videos of what I've done so far, but I'm not going to load them up tonight.
Effectively - something like this might be the ticket. This is for a silencing a PC watercooling heatsink - but the same idea applies - just distancing the fan blades from the source of turbulence.
This guy just gutted some cheap 120mm fans and used the casing as shrouds to make a tunnel for his measurements. I think for our xls5000 case perhaps just placing the fan outside the chasis will be sufficient, if not - surely just one empty 120x120x25 fan chasis extension will make the noise tolerable.
Effectively - something like this might be the ticket. This is for a silencing a PC watercooling heatsink - but the same idea applies - just distancing the fan blades from the source of turbulence.
This guy just gutted some cheap 120mm fans and used the casing as shrouds to make a tunnel for his measurements. I think for our xls5000 case perhaps just placing the fan outside the chasis will be sufficient, if not - surely just one empty 120x120x25 fan chasis extension will make the noise tolerable.
