General opinion on fans in recievers. (1 Viewer)

[Joe]

A cooling fan in a reciever just does not sound like a good thing to me. What has been your experiance in this area? Is it something to avoid or it does not make a differance?

Thanks.

 

[Kevin C Brown]

I agree: I'd never buy a receiver, or any component (except for a PC ) with a fan.
A properly designed component should be able to make due with just heat sinks, however large they might have to be...
Just too likely that a fan would be audible during quiet passages of a CD or DVD. I wouldn't want to take that chance. Some people might, but not me...

 

[Chuck Kent]

Depending on a receiver's design and size, it can be tough to design enough cooling capacity. A fan can certainly make things easier in that department.

IMO, I don't think it hurts anything. Especially if the fans only turn on when needed (say during loud volume sessions.)

Over the years, many different models have had them and with rare exception, I haven't read too many complaints. (The one I remember most recently is that Denon had some troubles a couple of years back with their AVR-3300 due to noisy/squeaky fan bearings. But when the fan worked correctly, everyone seemed to get along fine.)

For my own personal choices, I have never let the presence (or lack of) a fan influence any of my receiver purchases.

 

[Greg Zinselmeyer]

I have an AVR 3300 and had to get the fan replaced, heh. Like Chuck mentioned, it would whine when it started up, but it's fine since it has been replaced.

Even with my experience I wouldn't let a fan deter a purchase, what sounds good and has the features you need is the key.

 

[Chu Gai]

doesn't bother me so long as they're not audibly intrusive.

 

[Guy Usher]

The fan would influence my purchase. TThe more cooling you have the longer tthe thing lives, it is that simple. You can fillter tthe air and there are things you can do to make the fan not soo noisy`
I also put a fan next to my amps blowwing cool air onto them, especially during marathon movie sesssions.
The comment abouutt only having a fan oon a computer. . . What do you think thesse digital processors are. My computer has 8 fans in it and you can bet I didnt spend near as much for it as my audio geear. Pardon mmy spelling aaas I am sitting in a motel room using a cordless keyboard that is nutz.
Hail the FFan as it will in the long runn saave you money and in the short termm may save your life by penenting a ffire. A 4000 dollar reciever has ahell of a lot of sstuff in it they do get hot.

 

[LanceJ]

Possible reasons for fans on mid-fi equipment:
* Heatsinks are an expensive part of a receiver--making them smaller reduces manufacturing & shipping costs.
* Cramming five, six or seven(!) channels of amplification in one rack-size component AND keeping all those channels cool ain't easy with just convection cooling.
I've owned two stock Compaq computers, each for two years, that ran about 16 hours a day during those two years: the continuously-running fans never burned out (I'm pretty sure that fan motors that use a brushless design will last a very long time).
And don't quote me on this, but there should a thermal sensor in there somewhere to shut things down if the temperature does go too high.
My last in-dash car CD player lasted 5 years before it died....and it had no cooling fans, a dinky little 2" X 5" heatsink, a four channel, 15watt (RMS/continuous rating) that baked in the Texas sun & humidity all that time. And it was the disc loading mechanism that fried, not the electronics! Solid-state stuff can be made very tough, so I'm not worried if my home receiver gets a little hot.
I wouldn't worry about this issue.
LJ

 

[rob-socal]

My Pioneer Elete 1K$ receiver died after about 2 yrs of service. I think it was partially due to continuous overheating in the cabinet I had it in. Very low amount of air flow. I opened up the receiver and found that the DSP board was totally surrounded by a metal shield and had little-to-no air flow (not a spec of dust). I wish the unit would have had a fan. Now I'm in the process of making a fan assembly for the rack.

My 12 year old Technics SAGX910 has a fan that only comes on when the volume is at 40%, I've never heard it and it doesn't affect the sound quality. That box is still running strong after 12 plus years.

My Sony SAT-HD100 has a very noisy fan that runs all the time. It's very loud and I hate it. I open this box up every six months to clean out the dust. There's about 10 heat sync's inside. I think the fan was an afterthought in this box.

With today's high frequency DSP modules, mfgr's are using excessive shielding to prevent EMI which adds to the heat / pre-mature failure rates. I think a fan is a positive thing so long as it dosn't degrade from the quality. My EE friend tells me that every 10C rise in operating temperature = 1/2 drop in life expectancy.

-RJ

 

[Kevin C Brown]

Metal shielding, if connected directly to the processor or DSP chips, is a heat sink.
To each his/her own. I've never bought an audio component that had a fan, never will, and I've never had one fail for overheating either... I don't want to take the chance of a fan creating any problems for me. Functionality-wise, or audible-wise.
BTW...

My EE friend tells me that every 10C rise in operating temperature = 1/2 drop in life expectancy

Your friend is trying to oversimplify a very complicated situation. Failures of ICs and boards depend on not only absolute temperature, but also meeting an "activation energy" for the particular failure mechanism involved. Those items simply cannot be generalized to all ICs/boards in all HT equipment.
You get up around 150C (Celsius, not Fahrenheit), you will have problems. Any ordinary room temperature or even upwards of 100F or 120F, there's no appreciable change in failure rates with T. It's logarithmic with T.
(That's ambient T. The chip's internal T scales accordingly, and the difference is taken into account when it's designed into the particular application.)