I did have them on my sunbeam controller and yes on about 3/4 setting, they're pretty quiet, drop them to 1/2 and they're silent, although I don't know what thier performance dropped to.
I now have them connected directly to 12v and I can live with it, a tad loud but they are really cooling my CPU (via Radiator). I think the reason they are loud is due to the radiators fins being very dense as they are not too bad when not on the rad.
My sunbeam tech fan controller is teh suck. When dropping the fans speed the fans start making a weird noise, it's hard to describe, I don't think it's got enough juice to run them as even when they're set on full speed they still don't run as they do on 12v.
Sorry I can't be more specific. When not on a rad they seem very quiet, on a rad prob depends on the fin density. make sure your controller has loads of guts.