Cooling and Mod Possibilities:

   Antec bills their Sonata case as being a "Quiet Mid Tower" enclosure. That may be all very well for people desiring a quiet work environment and for those who just can't stand the whine of fans, but what about those of us who care about proper cooling, or those of us who want both a quiet case and decent cooling? Is the Sonata able to deliver both the needed cooling ability for the setups people are running nowadays and the quietness that is its tagline, or does it fail in some area?

   From the get-go, things don't appear to look very good. There are only two 120mm fan placements, (only one of which is supplied with a fan by default), and this itself wouldn't be so bad, but unfortunately the front 120mm fan placement does not nearly realize its full potential because of its position.

   Because of the placement of the excellent HDD cage, the size of the cage and the space constraints of this case, the 120mm fan mount is located *behind* the HDD cage - that's right, it's not anywhere near flush with the case chassis. Because of this, any fan placed here will not be able to work as well as it should - the fan won't be near the intakes, and thus a lot of the air it will move will not come from outside the case. Instead, it will tend to re-circulate air within the case, which won't help cool down internal temperatures as much as cooler air from the outside would. True, as long as the air within the case was cooler than the surface it was flowing over, a fan pushing that air would certainly help in cooling, but without being able to suck in outside air and instead relying on the negative pressure from the exhaust fans to bring in outside air, case temperatures will suffer. I would have preferred a proper, flush-with-the-case, fan placement, but this would have been hard to fit, given the current configuration of the HDD cage and the case.

 

The 120mm front fan mount.	The fan-mounting grommets.
The grommets go through the fan...	... and then attach to the mounting holes.

  The front fan mount, being directly behind the fans, won't suck a lot of air in any event - since there just isn't a lot of room for ventilation because of the presence of the HDD cage. However, Antec has provided four "grommets" that can be used to mount any 120mm fan you may wish to stick here. These rubbery pins have several V-shaped grooves that allow the pin to be inserted but make them hard to remove - and thus hold the fan to the mount. While they do prevent the fan from directly contacting the case and thus reduce transmission of vibration, they aren't very ideal in that they aren't as secure as bolts and nuts would have been.

   They also cannot survive many removals and re-insertions, as that process tends to wear them out. I would have preferred if Antec had used regular grommets for the fan mounting holes - they used regular grommets in the HDD trays, after all. This method would have required the use of screws and nuts though, and I suspect Antec wanted the fan mounting to be as easy as possible, as with the current method, tools aren't really required. You'll notice that when the grommets are pulled all the way through, they protrude quite a bit into the HDD area; you should probably use a cutting tool to trim down the excess, and that is why Antec recommends you mount the fan before mounting any HDDs, something that is a little annoying. (The reason the grommets are long is because they make it easy to pull them all the way through; I noticed that the rear fan's grommets, pre-installed with the fan, were trimmed as well.)

   Ideally, you should be able to remove and replace any fan without having to remove components.

Front fan filter...	... slides out with ease.
This should keep a lot of dust out from your system!	Intakes on the front bezel.

  To keep down on dust build-up inside the system, a problem for many people, the Sonata has a removeable dust filter, similar to the one on the PLUS1080AMG and some other Antec cases.

   Personally, a dust filter is almost necessary for me, as I find it nice to be able to remove this item for cleaning instead of having to clean the inside of the case; true, a dust filter doesn't stop everything, but it sure helps a lot in keeping the interior of your case, and more importantly, your CPU's heatsink, free from dust and dirt.

   The filter is held in place by plastic clips on both sides, and because it slides out from the bottom, you'll need to tip your case on its side to expose the bottom in order to remove it - a small inconvenience. Removing the front bezel reveals the intakes in this item; while they aren't excellent, they are decent, and are sort of hidden in that you have the inner layer of plastic with holes in it, and then an outer layer with holes out towards the side; air flows through both of these opens and into the case, but because they aren't lined up, you can't see inside the case.

   All of this adds up to a sleek and congruous look on the front panel. The chassis doesn't really have any nice intakes, but again, this is a bit of a moot point since the front fan isn't near the chassis wall.

Intakes on the chassis.	Rear 120mm fan placement.
A honeycomb-like fan punchout.	Fan grommets used here as well; they've been trimmed down.

  The rear 120mm fan placement, which is filled by an Antec-labelled 120x25mm thick fan, is ventilated by a honeycomb-like fan punch that allows for pretty good airflow. While a proper cutout and fan grill would have been better, it would have undoubtedly cost more.

   The fan here is mounted with the same grommets provided to you for mounting the front 120mm fan, but they have just been trimmed after they've been pulled into position; again, I would have welcomed real grommets and screws for use in mounting the fan here.

   I couldn't find the proper specification for this fan, but I'd estimate that it produced about ~30-32dBA of noise in an open environment, and pushed maybe ~60-65CFM of air. Note that if you plug this fan into one of the "Fan Only" connectors, these numbers will vary depending on what the temperature is inside of the PSU, as the PSU varies the voltage to these connectors based upon that factor.

   Also, note that Antec does *NOT* recommend that you plug fans into the "Fan Only" connectors if you are overclocking, or in any other situation where case temperatures are of a major concern to you.

   One mod I would definitely consider in this area, since it would be a simple task, would be to drill out the fan holes in the 120mm mount and install real grommets, and then just use nuts and bolts to hold the fan into position; if you were to do this, fan removal and replacement would be easier since it's hard to remove the grommets supplied, and they tend to break after several removals.

   The same could be said for the front fan mount, if one were to use it. Lastly, you'll want to note that there are no bottom vents in this single-fan 380w TruePower PSU; the vents are only on the front side. This isn't too good, since if there were vents, the PSU would help, at least a little, in removing hot air from the CPU area.

   Antec would have done well to place vents here since they removed the second fan to cut down on noise.

Rivets make it hard to remove the top and right side.	Side panel has a lot of room for mods.
Room for at least an 80mm chimney fan here. Also note, no bottom vents in the PSU.	Sweet blue LEDs up front. :)

So far I've covered all the stock cooling options of this case. Sadly, the riveting of side and top to the case chassis will make their removal for mods difficult, but not impossible. It's not completely necessary to remove these parts if you want to mod them, but it sure as heck would make things a lot easier.

   Looking at top, it's easy to see that there's room for at least an 80mm chimney fan up there, and if you use short-length optical drives (as is the standard nowadays), there's room up there for even a 120mm fan.

   If you do plan on modding any part of this case that involves the exterior, you'll want to be careful that you don't damage the nice paintjob; this will be hard, since almost all of the time, one does the cutting and down-and-dirty mods *before* applying any sort of paint job.

   The side panel, lacking a window, looks barren by case-modding standards. A blowhole could be added here, or even a small window, but the stamped-out Antec logo will hamper things a bit, as you won't want to cut halfway through it; you'll either have to avoid it completely or remove it all at once if you want a mod to work nicely here.

   Additionally, the handle/latch tends to get in the way, since it's near the area right over the CPU, a location ideal for a blowhole.

   Other things to consider in the way of modding are that the plastic drive covers are fairly flat on both sides; there are only tiny clips used to hold the drive rails in position when you're not using them. Should you want to cut up these drive covers for use in your custom fan controller, or for mounting a LCD, you shouldn't have any trouble at all because the plastic isn't curved.

   The 3.5" bay covers are also nice, in that they are metal and can be modded with ease. The front bezel sort of precludes any modding to be done on it, because of its design and two layers of plastic; in my opinion, any mod here has a large potential of turning out badly.

   Lastly, you'll notice a small nicety Antec included on the front, as the two blue LEDs on either side of the front port are brilliant. They sit a little ways behind clear plastic domes, and as such the domes only glow, but if you look at the LEDs head-on, they will be bright to the point of annoyance. At most other angles of view, the lights only appear to glow, making them pleasant, not distracting or annoying.

   And by now, you're probably wondering about case temperatures. Compared to my PLUS1080AMG, outfitted with two 80mm L1A Panaflo intakes and two 80mm H1A Panaflo exhaust fans (side fan not used), the Sonata produced case temperatures roughly 3 degrees Celsius higher, with the CPU being about 3 degrees higher as well. This was with the supplied 120mm fan in the rear (for exhaust) plugged into a regular molex connector and NOT the "Fan Only" connector - I wanted to keep things a little fairer this way.

   While 3 degrees isn't a huge difference, it will matter to some - however, this case hasn't really been marketed towards people who would really take concern to this difference.

   What I more noticed was that this case really did make my system sound quieter. Antec recently had an independent lab show that the Sonata case produced only 20.4dBA of sound at 1m in front of the case; while I didn't have a sound meter, I can say that the case was quieter than my PLUS1080AMG (not a loud case in my book), and not just because it had less fans, either. 

   Even when I turned off all the fans in my 1080AMG, I could still hear the HDDs whining a little; with the Sonata, the HDD's sound was lessened.

   Overall, I can say that the Antec Sonata accomplished its job in providing a solution that was not only among the quietest cases I've heard, but managed to cool decently as well.

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