| Article Index |
|---|
| Antec Sonata Plus 550 Case Review |
| Page 2 - Design and Features |
| Page 3 - More Features |
| Page 4 - The Power Supply |
| Page 5 - Conclusion |
| All Pages |
Formerly known simply as the Sonata Plus, this new case from Antec adds some power to an existing classic with the inclusion of a NeoPower 550W modular power supply to make this new concoction, the Sonata Plus 550, something to be sought after.
When we first opened the box of the Sonata Plus 550, we found the case was not wrapped in plastic like most other cases, but instead it was shrouded with a white fabric covering, and when we got it out of the box we realised why. The cloth covering is to protect the Sonata’s glossy piano-black finish from any possible marks or scratches during transport. Sadly it didn’t take long after it was out of its box to score a few marks on it – by means of my careless hand, as I was silly enough to touch the side of the case and leave a very obvious handprint, how dare I do such a thing!? After cleaning it off I was actually able to take some photos and have a proper look at the case and its features.
Appearance:
The front panel of the case is covered in silver brushed aluminium, which surrounds the matt-black plastic drive bay covers, with the necessary buttons and LEDs etched along the sides of the silver panel. Also around the front panel are a few trimmings done in a copper colour, namely around the 5.25” drive bays and up and down each side, it’s only painted plastic but it’s a good separator for the black and silver, and is certainly different – in a good way.
The top and sides as mentioned before have a very glossy black finish to them, it reminds me a bit of a car’s paint job so much so that’d I’m almost tempted to get the car wax out and give it a couple of coats and make sure it’s protected. It really is a great finish though, much better than the usual boring matt-black we see on the majority of cases these days. A few years ago, black was cool and different, now it’s taken over from beige as the norm, so it’s good to see Antec can still separate themselves from the herd.
Design and Features:
The Antec Sonata Plus 550 is only a Mid-Tower case but it still packs a lot of features inside. The motherboard area will take any standard size ATX or MicroATX board (up to 12” x 9.6”) without a worry. Any expansion cards are held in place by standard screws rather the clip arrangements found on many other cases, so it’s by no means a tool-free design when it comes to swapping bits and pieces, but I prefer my expansion cards held down my screws rather than plastic clips anyway, far more secure. All of the drives, both 5.25” and 3.5” are also held in with screws – well kind of, more on that later.
A maximum of 8 drives can be installed in the Sonata Plus, 4 x 3.5” drives internally, 3 x 5.25” drives, and one more space which is a 5.25” drive slot, that comes standard with a 5.25” to 3.5” convertor bracket for installing a floppy drive. If you don’t need a floppy drive (few do) this space can be used for a fourth 5.25” drive (or even another hard drive).
All the 5.25” drives are installed on drive slides which screw into the side of the drives, there are 3 sets of drives slides provided and attached to the base of the case, with the 4th set already installed on the 5.25” to 3.5” convertor bracket.
For the hard drives there are two methods of installation available. The first is by screwing them into removable drive trays, which contain anti-noise grommets for the screws to go through, this method will allow you to install 4 x 3.5” hard drives into the Sonata.
The second method is rather unusual, the drives are installed by squeezing them through elastic fabric straps and having the drives suspended in mid-air. With this method the drives are not touching the case at all and as such there is no way for them to transfer or cause any vibration noise through to the rest of the case. This is quite an innovative idea but the drives are barely held in there and if you were to transport the case you could guarantee they’d come loose and bounce around inside, Antec even warn you not to transport the case with drives installed in this manner.
To get access to the drive bays you need to unclip and swing open the front panel (which can then be easily popped off its hinges and removed completely) then remove two thumbscrews and open another metal door to gain access. Doing it this way and having the drives come out the front of the case is a great idea, because often when you try to remove hard drives from inside a fully assembled case, there are all sorts of cables and expansion cards in your path, this way you can easily pull the drives out the front with nothing getting in your way.
Also on this second metal door, there are two mounting holes for some 9cm fans if you require extra cooling, which include removable and washable dust filters to keep everything nice and clean inside. As standard there are no fans installed in these mounting holes, most likely to keep noise to a minimum.
The standard cooling system of the Sonata Plus 550 consists of a single 12cm fan at the rear of the case. This is a standard Antec Tri-Cool case fan and as such has a 3-way speed switch for low-medium-high fan speeds, on low and medium it pretty much can’t be heard at all. Other cooling fans can be added into the 9cm mounting holes down in front of the hard drive bay, but as mentioned before there’s none included there as standard to help keep the noise down.
Speaking of keeping the noise level down, which is what this case is all about after all, Antec have included sound deadening material over both side panels and the top panel of the case in an effort to keep any noise generated by the CPU fan, Graphics Card fans, hard drives etc... from getting out. It seems to do quite a good job, but even a normal bare metal side panel will block most of the noise from a PC system, so it’s hard to tell just how much better this sound deadening makes it, but it’s certainly a welcome inclusion.
The final feature Antec have included to reduce noise is in the feet of the case. It’s nothing too special, just some very soft rubber material, similar to the rubber anti-vibration grommets used in the hard drive mounting brackets, so the case isn’t going to sit on the floor and rattle.
As an effort to keep everything neat and tidy there are cable organiser clips built-in behind the hard drive bay, so any extra lengths of cables can be kept neatly out of the way. These don’t do much to help keep drive cables and such out of the way, a few stick-down cable clips would have been a useful inclusion.
The Power Supply:
The power supply included with the Sonata Plus is an Antec NeoPower 550W modular power supply, very similar to the Blue 650W version we reviewed here, and comes with more than enough connectors to power anything you could fit in this case (4 x SATA, 6x Molex, 2 x PCI-Express), and thanks to its modular design it makes it just that bit easier to keep everything nice and neat inside. The speed of the power supply fan is variable and adjusted automatically depending on the load and temperature of the system and even at top speed is not going to be blowing a gale, so it’ll always be nice and quiet.
The amount of power delivered by the 550W NeoPower PSU should easily be enough to power anything that’s likely to go into this case, and given that people who buy this case will be after a quiet PC, it’s unlikely they’ll be running dual GeForce 8800 Ultra’s and 10,000rpm Raptor hard drives so 550W will be more than enough. The majority of the power from the NeoPower PSU is split down 3 separate +12V rails, one for motherboard power, one for video card power, and one for peripherals and drives, and coupled with Active PFC and universal voltage input, it all adds up to make for a very stable supply of power.
Conclusion:
The Antec Sonata Plus 550 is not just a good looking case on the outside, it is also brilliantly designed on the inside. It’s structurally very solid and has just about every feature you could think of to keep the system inside as quiet as possible. The cooling system is adequate but somewhat simple, which is a bit of a trade-off when it comes to keeping the noise levels low, but Antec have left room for improvement with additional fan mounting points.
There are more than enough hard drive and optical drive mounting bays for an average to higher end user, and with thumbscrew access for the side panel and hard drive bay, it’s easy to get access to change or fix parts inside.
There’s no Perspex window side-panel included or even offered as an option with the Sonata Plus, so this case isn’t about showing off, it’s more about style and looking good without trying.
The Sonata Plus 550 retails online for just shy of AU$300, almost $100 more than the very popular Sonata III, so it’s not cheap by any means, which is its only real downfall, however the power supply is excellent and the quality you get from this case is second to none, and I would happily recommend it to anyone looking for a quality mid-tower who wants a system as quiet as possible, so long as they can afford it that is.
OzHardware Rating – 9/10 – Recommended!
This product can be purchased online at www.techbuy.com.au (Direct Link)
Still not recomended for transport tho, but quite secure afterwards.