[Obsidian Dragon]

I believe the comments about little or no fan noise are for the original M1 computers. The M1Pro and M1 Max are higher performance processors and therefore generate more heat (still much less than their Intel counterparts). Therefore to keep the thermals in a good range, the fan necessarily need to run. In an ultra slim notebook, there is little room for air to move and thus the turbulence as air is pushed or pull across the components, heat sinks, and heat pipes creates noise. There is quite a lot of discussion about the Mac Studio and the fan noise there. No matter how quiet it is, in a recording environment requiring critical listening, any noise is undesired. There will always be some form of compromise. You will need to determine if the noise level is acceptable for your environment or not. It is possible that your particular unit is noisier than others, so you might consider exchanging it for another one. Or you might need to sacrifice performance for a quieter fan noise model based on the original M1 (note limited Unified RAM capacities).