Aguilar AG/Tone Hammer: Silencing Noisy Fans

bassace97 · February 13

Hi all,

I recently came into possession of an Aguilar AG700, which came up for a good price and the GAS got the better of me!

Upon using the amp it became aparent that despite the lovely deep clear tone, there was also another noise: The fans! Which were very distracting in practice/low noise situations, so I decided to do something about it.

The amp ships with shall 50x10mm fans, which according to the datasheet spin upwards of 6000rpm, which is mad (And Loud!)

Upon measuring the dimensions and surfing the internet, I settled on the Noctua A6x25mm fans. These spin a. Lot slower, and are much bigger so they actually move air while being quieter than the standard ones, result!

The next task was to design some way of mounting the fans in the amp. The whole on the back was too small to accept the New fan. I used Fusion 360 to design a bracket that would allow me to mount a 60mm fans to a 50mm mount. This uses M3 screws and lock nuts to mount to the case and the fan to the adapter.

Next was the side fan. For this? I recreated the bent metal bracket on fusion, but adapted it for a 60mm fan.

Following this was powering the fans. The original fans connect to 2 pin connectors on the preamp board. In order to connect the new fans, I took the 4 pin to 3 pin adapter that Noctua provides and spliced 2 pin connectors onto it and connected the news fans to the board. I used zipties to tie the cables out the way.

The results were great, amp is basically silent now, you can just about hear it if you put your ear to it, which is how it should be! Plenty of airflow coming out the side as well, so it'll stay cool!

A note for those who try this: It does void the warranty. This amp is 6 years old, so is well out of warranty.

I accept no liability for those who try this. Amps are dangerous even when turned off, and extreme caution should be taken when opening an amp.