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by TheOtherHobbes 2661 days ago
And it's very unlikely to be a broadband attenuator. Attenuating a single frequency is a neat trick, but most acoustic applications require require something that works a wide frequency range.

Given the breathless tone and the curious turns of phrase, I strongly suspect the author has no background in sound, acoustics, science, or journalism.
2 comments
xyzzy123 2661 days ago
It could still be very useful without being wide-band!

Particularly with fan noise, there’s often one or two stand-out annoying harmonics while the wide-band noise is less offensive.

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hatsunearu 2661 days ago
The author is probably one of those science journalist that has a at best shaky grasp of the material--these people have to write appealing articles (they're basically advertising the university) for a whole lot of different disciplines, so it's not going to be easy.

And I think the point is that this blocks out only certain frequencies, without being a massive structure (you can easily make a serpentine acoustic notch filter but it's gonna be huge)

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