Soundproofing
The case is great, but it doesn’t have sound-dampening panels or any features to actively reduce sound like many of the Antec cases.
I bought the bought the AcoustiPack LITE pack along with the case, which contains two sheets of the 2-layer self adhesive material. As the case isn’t that big, I didn’t need the ‘Ultimate’ pack.
Generally, the material was nice to work with. The adhesive backing is good, and you really can pull it up if you need to reposition. Which I did - it’s tricky to get the perfect fit first time. Much of it was in the measuring - I had to leave space for the case to close properly, while getting maximum coverage for sound absorption.
The hardest bit of the job was to lay the bottom piece, which goes under the drive bays. The screw holes for the drive bays are raised enough to get the AcoustiPack material underneath, but I had to make some incisions in order to get the raised bits through nicely. I also had to cut out a section to allow the flap over the front panel to move freely.
AcoustiPack preparation
The self-adhesive backing was a bit fiddly as it kept ripping as you can see below. As AcoustiPack advertised though, if it’s not quite right you can pull it up and reposition if necessary, which it was.
Self adhesive...
I spent a while covering the power button assembly. While it may not have been necessary for noise, one problem I found when I plugged the power to the LED in (I wanted to see how it looked) was that the blue light spills through to the VFD window, so you can see through it. This doesn’t look very nice, so I made sure the gaps were filled. The same goes the other side so that the light doesn’t come out of the air vent in the case.
Case soundproofing (front)
When it came to covering up some of the unnecessary vents, I didn’t want to leave the sticky backing exposed to the holes in the case. It’s just going to get dusty (the dust will stick) and won’t look very nice. What I did was to get some black paper, and sellotaped it to the case before sticking the AcoustiPack over it. As I didn’t have any, and didn’t want to waste printer ink, the black paper came courtesy of full-page ads with a black backgound in an old Top Gear magazine. Thanks, Vauxhall.
Roof soundproofing
I tested the CPU fan against the open vent and it does make quite an airy whine though the holes. Seem like it was a good idea to cover up the vent which will be above the fan and let the air come in from the one next to it. The only trouble is that there’s only about 1mm clearance between the fan and the soundproofing - a bit more would have been nice I suppose that’s the trade-off with having such a slim case.
Another little thing I did was to get a spare bit of the AcoustiPack material, stuck it to some cardboard, and blu-tacked it to the bottom of my DVD drive. This will help to absorb any sound coming from the drive bay underneath it, and is removable for when I change the drive.
I’m not in a position to compare the noise before and after, as I did this before I’d even ordered many of the components, but it should be a good starting point for a silent computer. This SPCR review shows the difference that it can make - they say that while it isn’t ground-breaking, it does make enough of a difference to be worthwhile for the enthusiast. I’m pretty enthusiastic.