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Introduction

Case feet aren’t the most interesting of products; however they happen to be parts of your case which can seriously reduce a lot of noise due to vibrations. Today we’ll be replacing out Lian Li V1000’s wheels with some soft AcoustiFeet in hope of reducing noise.

Features

• Pack Weight: 22g
• Foot Height: 7mm
• Foot Diameter: 29.5mm
• Material: Vibration-Dampening Silicone Rubber
• Non-marking and not sticky!

Specifications

	Black Firm	Black Medium	Black Soft	Black V Soft
Model	ACF3007-30B	ACF3007-25B	ACF3007-20B	ACF3007-15B
Colour	Matt Black
Softness	Shore A 30° (firm)	Shore A 25° (medium)	Shore A 20° (soft)	Shore A 15° (very soft)

	Clear Firm	Clear Medium	Clear Soft	Clear V Soft
Model	ACF3007-30C	ACF3007-25C	ACF3007-20C	ACF3007-15C
Colour	Clear
Softness	Shore A 30° (firm)	Shore A 25° (medium)	Shore A 20° (soft)	Shore A 15° (very soft)

The AcoustiFeet

The four AcoustiFeet arrive fixed to square of black silicon. Breaking the feet away from the silicon is very easy. Once broken apart, the feet are very neat with no excess silicone.

Standard case feet are made from either solid plastic or hardened rubber. The manufacturers do this to save money; however these sorts of feet do not decouple unwanted vibrations and so do not reduce noise.

Acousti Products’ AcoustiFeet are made from soft silicone unlike most case feet. They are available in four different softness’s depending on the weight of your computer and two different colours – - either black or clear. The model of feet that we have for review to today is the black soft model. As our chassis is a Lian-Li V1000 – - which is aluminium – - the computer is fairly lightweight compared to most standard computers.

Aside from colour and softness, the AcoustiFeet are also much smaller than standard case feet in size. Comparing them to the feet on an Antec Sonata 550 Plus, the AcoustiFeet are about 2/3 the size.

With cheaper case feet, they often fall off due to poor adhesive being used. With the AcoustiFeet, 3M self-adhesive is pre-applied which makes installation very simple – just peel away the backing and stick them on. If you’ve never heard of 3M before, they are one of the leading manufacturers for adhesives and general household products. Using 3M adhesive should mean that the feet will not fall off – - due to it being a very well known adhesive.

Testing

To test the AcoustiFeet I applied them to a Lian Li V1000 Plus – removing the wheels from it. Unfortunately as I do not have any sound equipment which measures for noise at this low dbA, you’ll have to take my word whether I notice any sound difference using my God given ears.

We’ll compare the noise from the AcoustiFeet with the noise from my Lian-Li V1000’s wheels – with rubber tyres applied.

When using the standard Lian Li case wheels, the noise was pretty bad with the hard rubber tyres vibrating with the bottom of my desk (wood).

However, when switching to the AcoustiFeet, most of the vibrations were in fact decoupled.

Although this is a comparison with Lian Li case wheels (which are normally quite noisy), when also comparing the noise to my Antec Sonata 550 Plus (with same system installed and fans), the noise due to vibrations was considerably more than the vibrations from the Lian Li with AcoustiFeet installed. This was a bit of a shock as the Lian Li is aluminium which tends to be much nosier than well-built steel enclosures like the Sonata.

The feet also adhered very well to the case. When shoving the case across the carpet, the feet remained fixated in their position. 3M adhesive really is good – - I told you so.

Conclusion

I can conclude to say that the AcoustiFeet do in fact work in decoupling case vibrations and for only £2.34 at Quiet PC, they are a great purchase for any enthusiast demanding reduced noise levels.

Thanks Acousti Products and QuietPC!

Related posts:

1. Lamptron Noise Reduction Kit