Silent/soundproof living: tips and guides to achieve living in silence

I am always looking for silent/quiet versions of products and ways to reduce noise at home, and came upon this website dedicated to all sorts of tips, DIY guides and product recommendations for soundproof living.

Since this is a common problem, I figured it could be a good starting point for a discussion of tips and tricks other people have to reduce the various sounds everyday life throws at us.

It's really hard to find the right level of "quiet", since healthy people without sound sensitivity aren't bothered by the same level of noise. Some of the guides on the website are more general but a lot of it still seems helpful.

This is the sound (level) of our people: https://soundproofliving.com/.

 

It's a luxury not everyone can enjoy but one of the fortunate finds I have made is a (hopefully) silent (enough) coffee grinder. I have been searching for this and they are typically very loud, some as high as 85dB, so basically out of the question. I was about to give this up and found one that most comments gush about how silent it is.

I don't know (yet) how much quiet, since compared to 85dB almost any noise level is quiet, but this seems the only burr (better than blade, crushes rather than cuts) grinder that has a tolerable level of noise. It runs at a lower RPM to achieve this. There are some bladed grinders that seem silent enough but it doesn't give good results. Anyway, it seems to be the quietest one so if isn't good enough, probably nothing is. I saw others boasting silence but they are way more (3-4x) expensive.

Capresso infinity conical burr grinder (~$95 USD)

 

I don't typically have a problem with this kind of device, but at one point I did have a blender that made a noise I couldn't bear. Trouble was, it chopped large quantities of ginger more efficiently than anything else I'd had, and I couldn't afford to try several others.

So I timed how long it took, and after that I always operated it from the far side of the house by switching the electrical circuit for the kitchen sockets on and off at the fusebox.

You can probably even get "smart" ones now that you can control via the internet.

 

There must be a lot of relevant information out there, but the problem is accessing it.

Over forty years ago I knew someone whose job was studying noise on nuclear submarines to ensure they were as undetectable as possible when they went silent underwater. Part of this was spending a lot of time measuring the noise made by commercial domestic appliances. The problem would be getting the various military research units around the world to release this information.

 

I just found out about SilenceWiki. Because of course there is a wiki for silence. It also has guides that look pretty comprehensive. https://silencewiki.com/

This one is especially difficult, a silent PC: https://silencewiki.com/reviews/quiet-pc-case/.

It's all about moving parts. With SSDs and integrated graphics, there can only be one fan and fanless computers, using passive cooling, are going to be more available soon. Good enough to use for everyday use, 4K video and even a little gaming without a single decibel of sound (OK probably a tiny few around the capacitors, or something). I have been waiting for this for years and they are soon to be ready for a reasonable price. The Mac mini M1 is almost there, the fan almost never needs to run.

Edit: SilentWiki appears to be meh, but the underlying ideas are generally the same everywhere so still probably has some good bits

 

I have been furiously looking for a completely silent PC for a long time, so will report once I find something that fits the bill. Fanless PCs are the holy grail but there are good options coming out lately that use large heatsinks and fans. With fans size is everything, cheap small fans turn very quickly and make annoying buzzing sounds. They're also poorly manufactured and tend to vibrate. Many of the new models have extra large fans and they pretty much run completely silent.

So far it's either underpowered, way too expensive, USD $1500+, or from a manufacturer that probably won't offer much support.

There are upcoming mini PCs that will be at a reasonable price/performance that promise <25dB at normal usage from trusted manufacturers, like Asus, Gigabyte, MSI, etc. I started writing a guide on this, but won't be finished until unicorns hit the shelves and I verified they do have all their teeth.

 

This website appears dedicated to people with sleeping disorders, who face the same issues of trying to eliminate noise sources so that when they finally manage to fall asleep, they won't be woken up: https://www.snoringsource.com/soundproofing/.

 

Given how noisy Taiwanese laptops are, I'm not convinced Gigabyte, Asus etc mini PCs are going to be quiet.

With my desktop PC, I went through this process years ago. I still have my Antec Sonata case, which was revolutionary at the time as it had these elastic hard drive sling things that effectively isolated HDD vibration from the rest of the case to avoid the annoying hum they all used to have. These days you can just buy a large SSD, but back in the day...

The rest is using a very large heatsink (I have a classic ThermalRight Ultra-120 extreme from the days of yore on my 2017 era i7, but I'd probably have to part with it if upgrading to a modern Ryzen CPU. I'm sure there is a current equivalent. The rest is using a flow fans with adapters to run them at low speed (Noctua), this can include replacing the PSU fan, and even the GPU fan if you don't use a fanless GPU.

 

I wonder if living in silence for too long could make your brain act in the same way that it would for someone who was developing deafness. Becoming deaf isn't good for your health, physical or mental. Just try googling "side effects of deafness".

 

My MacBook is silent, as was the previous one. I don't think I've come across a computer that activated a fan in normal use since they had spinning disks.

My last one eventually got to the stage where it would start the fan if I was doing something like watching a film and uploading tons of photos at the same time, as it was more than 10 years old; the OS and a couple of the image processing applications had started to outgrow its processing power. If I stopped doing one of the multiple demanding jobs, though, the fan would stop a few seconds later. Had it been a particularly annoying sound, it would have been easy to avoid it.

 

Especially with the M1 chip, Macs are really great for noise level, strong recommend. Not for me though, too much trouble switching OS, but for noise they are great. But the price of upgrades, though... ouch. The base Mac mini model is one of the best deals out there, but they charge 3-4x for the upgrades and it's a closed machine, no self-upgrades after sale (without violating the warranty anyway).

Specifically from Gigabyte, there's a new product line, BRIX Extreme, about to come out that looks great, promises <25dB at idle and <35dB at high load. There's a line with AMD Ryzen 5000u and another with Intel 12th gen (Alder Lake) CPUs. For noise levels, AMD is always best, much better power efficiency for the same performance. Asus' look good too but they're all barebones DIY, too much for me to handle.

Personally it's not about living in total silence, it's about eliminating annoying background noises so that the normal sounds of living are more tolerable. In my case it's all about load, I can tolerate sounds, just only so much at a time. If it's above my tolerance, eventually it brings in massive PEM.

 

[If I've stumbled through brain fog into the wrong thread, feel free to put this in the right place, moderators!]

I recently found these (noise-reducing) silicone coasters and plates. I use them on my bedside table and anywhere I/carers put jugs/glasses etc.

I use the plates as extended coasters, basically, with an added coaster on top. But you could use the plate as a...plate, for a snack, or just as a place to gather little bits and pieces like pills, pens, call bell etc.

Size:

Plate is 25.5cm x 12cm.
Coasters are 10cm diameter. The bit inside the lip is 8cm diameter.​

Colours:

Colour-wise, I tried a few and can testify that the warm grey coasters go best with the clay plate. The clay colour is what I would call taupe, basically a warm beigey neutral. The warm grey coasters are a light grey, but on top of the plate they just look like a lighter shade of the same colour.​

Where:

Available from loads of places but these guys carry both which is handy, and price of both is reduced:​

https://www.connox.com/categories/kitchenware/kitchen-linen/coasters/zone-denmark-glass-coaster.html

https://www.connox.com/categories/kids/kids-dinnerware/oyoy-tiny-inka-silicone-plate.html?itm=179630

If buying from Connox make sure you’re on the right site for your country (pasted below).


Pros:

They act like silencers, so when a glass/dish is put down, it’s quieter.

If you layer up a coaster on a plate, it’s even quieter.

They both have lips, so if you have a little spill, it won’t go everywhere, it will just stay there waiting for someone with energy to wipe it up, and your table will be protected.

If you drop one on the floor, it will be quiet.

The plate can go in the dishwasher. (I can't remember what the coasters said.)

The little holder the coasters come in is handy.

Plate is a good size – you can easily fit a glass, a mug and an egg-cup on it, for example.

They actually look really classy.

Very good for outside too, as it would be no problem if they got rained on or fell on the ground.
​

Cons:

They do attract dust so if that would really bother you, then maybe not for you.

They smelled at the beginning, but 2 days of airing outside followed by a wash by carer left them fine for me. You could air them on a windowsill if you can reach out the window.

There’s a little ball on the plate because they’re designed for kids. You/a carer can slice the ball off with a Stanley knife so that they look more adult. (Scissors also worked, just a less clean finish.)

On some websites the Inka plate is called a tray – I’m calling it a plate because it doesn’t have a firm base, so you wouldn’t want to use it to carry tea from the kitchen to your room, for example.​