My MacBook Pro 14” M1 Max arrived yesterday. My concerns about fan noise have been unfounded thus far.

I haven’t done any real heavy work yet. However, while installing a 2GB OS update and a few dozen apps (Xcode, FCP, Office…), the fans stay off most of the time. When they do spin up, they are at ~2300 rpm, and are inaudible from typical working distance in my quiet office.

If I hold my head close to the laptop, I can _just_ hear the air movement. At that point, my idle 16” MacBook Pro that is six feet away sounds louder. Heck, even my previous quiet Mac benchmark, a 2013 Mac Pro, is louder from 6’ than the 14” MBP from 6 inches.