Akasa Pax-Mate Acoustic Absorption Mat

Test Bed

• AMD Athlon XP 1800+
• Akasa Silver Mountain Heatsink
• AOpen AK77 Plus (A) Mainboard 
• 512 mb Crucial PC2100 DDR 
• Thermaltake Active RAM Cooler
• Asus V8200 GeForce 3 Pure w/ Tt Crystal ORB
• Seagate Barracuda 10gb ATA100 7,200 RPM Hard Drive
• Maxtor20gb ATA100 7,200 Hard Drive
• Phillips 8x4x20 Burner
• Generic 40x CD-ROM
• Global Win YCC-61F1 Aluminum Server Case
• Two 120 x 120 x 38mm Sunon Low Speed Case Fans

Performance  

The fans of consequence are the two Sanyo 120x120x38mm (84 CFM @ 2,400 RPM, 35 dBA - Thanks Sidewinder Computers) and a Delta like 60mm (37.6 CFM @ 6,800 RPM, 46.5 dBA.) With all our fans running at full honk, the sound levels were still there but there was a tonal change that sub $1,000 sound meters cannot measure.  The change in the tone of the fans made them more tolerable.  To test such a subjective thing, I used a real world measurement.  My wife’s anger.  Like most of you, my computer room door remains closed when everyone is asleep so my racket won't wake my wife.  I waited until around midnight on four consecutive nights and opened up the door to the testing room so that any sounds could be carried down the hall to where she was sleeping.  Unorthodox testing you say, yes.  Fun until I get yelled at, absolutely.  On day 1, she came into the testing room to yell at me after 6 minutes of the door being open and no mats installed.  The next night I had only the 60mm Delta on the CPU heatsink running in the computer with no mats installed.  I was yelled at the 10 minute mark.  After installation of the mats the next night, it took her 14 minutes to come and yell at me with all the fans running and on the next night with only the 60mm Delta I didn’t get yelled at any, either that night or the next morning. 

Conclusion

While my “testing method” is more comical than scientific (other than to my wife), the point I want to make is that sound is a very subjective thing.  Someone playing a Harp or Cello will make much more noise than a Delta but the sound is of a different tone.  One is irritating and one isn't.  With two 120x120x38mm fans and a 60x60x25mm Delta running in addition to the video card, chipset, and Tt RAM cooler, my case is indeed irritating.  The mats, while not dampening things out completely did change the tone of the sound, making it less irritating.  The 60mm Delta running without the twin 120s seemed more like a standard 26 CFM 60mm and again the tonal differences were present and welcome. 

While I don’t have decibel numbers to spit out, it is important to remember that sound is more than a simple measurement.  The tonal change had more of an impact than did the decrease in flat volume.  With that said, we recommend the Akasa sound mat to anyone with a computer noise and/or sound sensitive wife problem.  

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