This is just a plea for reviewers to start routinely including formal measurements of the sound levels produced by pumps and other equipment, like chillers, in their reviews of equipment.
Of course power, energy efficiency, size, customer service, and cost are all important characteristics of each product. Reviewers typically comment on most or all of these features. But noise level is also an important feature. Look at all the posts here that mention it, as well as the mentions in reviews from customers on business websites. The manufacturers, too, frequently emphasize that their products are quiet -- yet they rarely provide objective measurements of precisely how quiet.
So like another ReefCentral poster asked, I am asking that this change and reviewers start including this kind of information.
It took years, but they finally started including sound level measurements in personal computer reviews a few years ago. Why shouldn't the same happen for aquarium equipment?
Expecting an individual hobbyist to go out and buy an audiometer just for a review of a new piece of equipment probably isn't realistic. But members of local clubs could invest in and share one, and anyone regularly producing reviews for blogs or youtube should certainly make that investment (you can pick an audiometer up for not that much on amazon, for example).
Then we all, as potential customers, wouldn't feel so helpless wondering which pump is likely to be louder, when pump owners all are saying that their pumps are 'mostly quiet except for a slight hum.'
Of course power, energy efficiency, size, customer service, and cost are all important characteristics of each product. Reviewers typically comment on most or all of these features. But noise level is also an important feature. Look at all the posts here that mention it, as well as the mentions in reviews from customers on business websites. The manufacturers, too, frequently emphasize that their products are quiet -- yet they rarely provide objective measurements of precisely how quiet.
So like another ReefCentral poster asked, I am asking that this change and reviewers start including this kind of information.
It took years, but they finally started including sound level measurements in personal computer reviews a few years ago. Why shouldn't the same happen for aquarium equipment?
Expecting an individual hobbyist to go out and buy an audiometer just for a review of a new piece of equipment probably isn't realistic. But members of local clubs could invest in and share one, and anyone regularly producing reviews for blogs or youtube should certainly make that investment (you can pick an audiometer up for not that much on amazon, for example).
Then we all, as potential customers, wouldn't feel so helpless wondering which pump is likely to be louder, when pump owners all are saying that their pumps are 'mostly quiet except for a slight hum.'
