EKL Alpenföhn Wing Boost 3 ARGB High Speed White Edition Review – When data sheet and reality collide

1 - Intro, Unboxing and technical Data 2 - Test System, Chamber and Equipment 3 - Voltages, Wattage and RPM 4 - Volumetric Airflow 5 - Statischec Pressure 6 - Noise, Frequency Analyses and Sound Files 7 - Conclusion and Final Words

If you compare the absolute values with those of the reference, the Wing Boost 3 doesn’t cut a bad figure at all. It’s even a tad quieter than the reference at maximum speeds, but it has to make up for it at lower speeds and when used on a radiator with increasing thickness. At 1000 rpm it is clearly louder, especially as the sound charateristics could also be classified as rather unpleasant.

Sound comparison (recording) at 100% speed

As just mentioned, the subjective sensation is a much more dominant noise from the motor and bearing, while the impeller can act quite well. However, the somewhat grumpier performance is noticeably more annoying than the whispering fan noise of the Refrenz in the somewhat higher frequency range. This puts the slightly better dBA values into perspective and shows that numbers alone are not everything.

Alpenföhn Wing Boost 3 ARGB High Speed

Noctua NF-A12 PWM

As a cautionary example of what’s really loud at around 1800rpm, I’d still have a cheap case fan from a PC table labelled on a rather high priced Taiwanese case supplier that could easily have been used to run octocopters through:

Sound comparison (recording) at 1000 rpm

The soundstage is also very different here, although the Wing Boost 3’s performance becomes a bit more restrained.

Alpenföhn Wing Boost 3 ARGB High Speed

Noctua NF-A12 PWM

Total speed range (500 to 2200 rpm)

Before I will explain the frequency analysis of the recorded spectrum to you, there is already the dreaded “station search”, where we will play through the fan operation from the lowest to the highest speed. And please don’t be alarmed, we’ve amplified the whole thing a bit so you can hear it better. So don’t set your listening level too high, though – it’s not particularly extreme this time. The Arctic P14 was a completely different calibre…

However, the course isn’t quite as balanced as hoped for and the fan increases a bit acoustically at 900 to just over 1000 rpm, and then even gets a bit quieter again.

If the speakers have survived the whole thing up to this point, let’s now go into more detail.

Frequency spectrum in the housing

Let’s look at the frequency analyses of all measurements and all three speeds tested. The graphs speak for themselves, as you can also see the lower frequency peak of engine and bearing noise very clearly with increasing RPMs: