[wixy]

Was just interested to know. I have seached but found no info. Do they come with a dB rating?

 

[Erling]

That depends entirely on the model in question.


I have had two myself, a simple 7" Vidikron video-grade machine which was almost completely silent, having only a single and fairly slow fan.


My present one, a Sony 1292, a 9" monster which is supposedly the most noisy CRT projector ever made, with 14 fans, is indeed VERY loud - loud enough to drone out the dialog in the most quiet passages of a movie.


Some models are varying the fan speeds, so they in effect have variable noise levels. I have heard a Barco 1209 which is substantially more quiet than my Sony, but according to the owner, the fan speedup that takes place when it's been running a few hours, is still enough to make the noise annoying.


If you look around in this forum, you will find many posts about hushboxes and fan modifications, so lowering the noise level is a desire for the owners of many different models. The general opinion regarding noise if you compare CRT to digital projectors though, seems to be that the CRTs often have a less irritating noise spectrum, since they typically use larger and slower rotating fans than the smaller digitals.

 

[SondekLP12]

My Dwin HDP-500 has no fan. Only static discharges from the tubes do I ever hear, and that is quite hard to hear to distract you.

 

[gn2]

Most are rated at about 45db, but often are much less intrusive than this figure would indicate. Barco's are the quietest by brand, then likely the NEC PG's, XG's are louder. Sony 1292 is the loudest by a long, long, long shot. Most are quieter than a lamp projector which, IMHO are very loud. You can get some very quiet crt projectors, but most people bothered by the noise usually build a hush box. Db ratings are given in just about every projectors spec sheet usually found in the first few pages of the Service or Installation manuals.

 

[ChrisWiggles]

I would only add that you really need to know what kind of noise it is, because 50db in the HF can be really annoying, but low freq at the same SPL like a low whoosing can be totally inaudible, so it's difficult to just peg a dB number on them. Better is to ask about specific projectors, most are quite quiet, a few others are hovercrafts.

 

[DPB]

My Barco BG800 is very quiet, I sit with my hear about 1 foot from the lenses and I hardly hear it. It's a fairly low pitched sound too. My PC sitting about 10 feet away is MUCH noisier than the projector.