Tom spoke to them at Computex about it. With the special plastic they use for the blades, colouring is challenging. It took them a while to get brown to work, never mind black.
I posted your article on a different forum regarding these fans, since I'm aware that they are in high demand and well sought out after.
I didn't take any cred away from you, just used your headline of this thread and then linked your article in the post, so they can read your original post.
Tom spoke to them at Computex about it. With the special plastic they use for the blades, colouring is challenging. It took them a while to get brown to work, never mind black.
I doubt the timeframe was measured in months. The manufacturing process or tolerances may have not been correct/available.
The price for result may have been way off with what was available etc.
I'd expect the price/process balance was a large part with how long the industrial line has had black available vs in their mainstream line.
Have Noctua ever had a product flop in reference to something not as advertised?
I'm not sure how long or at what speeds one needs to run various fans for blade runout to start causing imbalances, but I've got multiple rigs running around the clock at minimum 50% rpm range that haven't degraded in operation for at least 5 years now (mix of consumer and industrials) and I'd expect many more years of trouble free operation.
On the flip side, I've got a lot of client machines that are only just starting to show fan failure on mostly Corsair lines past the 5 year mark (arch/eng workstations) and those are often neglected in terms of dust filter cleanings/case cleanings so only time will (continue) to tell if the upcharge is truly worth it outside of airflow to noise/power ratings.
I need 10 of these like yesterday, its gonna be expensive especially considering I just bought as many new EK fans all of which are failing already and are brand new!