A regular projector usually hangs from the ceiling or sits on a shelf behind the couch, with its fan above or behind your head. A short throw or ultra short throw projector turns that around. An ultra short throw (UST) model, often sold as a laser TV, sits on a low console a few inches from the wall, under the picture, facing you. A short throw model sits out in the room, often on a coffee table or a shelf between you and the screen.
So the fan is in front of you. That is the room problem this guide is about. Our main projector guide covers every type. Here we look only at short throw and UST models, at the mode you would actually run in a living room in the evening, and at what else a box under the screen does that the spec sheet does not mention.
We read specification pages and PDFs from Epson, LG, BenQ, XGIMI, AWOL Vision, Formovie, Optoma, Hisense, Samsung and ViewSonic. Ten makers, seventeen models, and fifteen of them carry a noise figure.
Our picks are listed above, with full specifications for each.
What throw ratio tells you about where the fan sits
Throw ratio links how far the lens sits from the wall to how wide the picture is, and a smaller number means closer. The makers here print ratios from 0.16 to 0.83, and several translate that into a real distance, which is more useful when you are measuring a living room.
LG gives two distances for the HU915QB: "Set to wall: 100"@10cm, Standard: 100"@42cm". The first is measured from the wall to the set, the second from the lens to the wall. XGIMI says the AURA 2 puts a 100 inch picture up "from just 17.8 cm away from the wall". AWOL says an 80 inch picture from the LTV-3000 Pro needs it "as close as 6 inches (0.5 feet) to the wall". Hisense's US sheet for the L9Q gives 5.4 inches for 100 inches, measured from the back of the projector to the wall and including the screen's depth. Optoma lists a projection distance of 18.5 to 25.98 inches for the CinemaX P2 across its 85 to 120 inch range.
Read those carefully, because each maker measures from a different point: the lens, the back of the cabinet, or the wall behind a screen. The takeaway for noise is simpler. A UST cabinet sits roughly where a TV stand would be, at much the same distance from the couch as the screen itself. If your seat is close to the screen, the fan is close to you too.
Short throw models are different. BenQ's TK710STi and HT2150ST both list "Throw Ratio 0.69~0.83" or close to it, with a 1.2x zoom, which puts the projector further out from the wall and closer to the middle of the room. In a small room that can mean a table right beside a seat. Neither BenQ page publishes a distance in inches, so check the room plan before you buy.
Most of these makers publish two or three figures, one per mode, and the gap between them is often bigger than the gap between brands. Here is what they publish for the mode they call quietest, kept in their own units:
- A-weighted (dBA or dB(A)): Epson LS650, 23 dBA in Eco Mode (36 dBA Normal). LG HU915QB, 26dB(A) in Energy Saving Max. (Eco) (28 Med., 30 Bright).
- Plain dB, by mode: Epson LS800, 23 dB in Quiet Mode (32 dB Normal), now marked Discontinued by Epson. BenQ V5010i, 26 dB eco (28 typical). BenQ TK710STi, 28 dB eco (31 typical).
- Plain dB, one figure, no mode: AWOL LTV-3000 Pro, 27 dB or less. Formovie Theater Premium, 28 dB or less. XGIMI AURA 2, 32 dB or less at 1 metre.
We do not rank the A-weighted list against the plain dB list, and we do not rank a single no mode figure against a quiet mode figure. For what the A in dBA adds, see our dBA explainer.
The logarithmic scale is why the mode matters so much. Roughly every 10 dB is a doubling of how loud something sounds. Epson's LS650 moves 13 dBA between Eco and Normal, so on paper Normal Mode is more than twice as loud as Eco to the ear. The LS800's 9 dB gap is close to a doubling. BenQ's V5010i moves only 2 dB, which most people would struggle to notice. If you will watch at night with the lights down, the eco or quiet figure is the one to buy on. If the room is bright in the day and you will run full power, buy on the higher figure.
What quiet mode costs in a living room
No maker in this group publishes how bright the picture is in its quiet or eco mode. Epson comes closest by publishing power. The LS650 draws 278 W in Normal mode, 244 W in Medium and 186 W in ECO. The LS800 draws 350 W in Normal and 217 W in ECO. Less power usually means less light, but Epson does not put a lumen figure on it, and it publishes no noise figure for the Medium step at all.
There is a second catch on the LS800, which Epson now lists as discontinued. Its noise row says "Quiet Mode" while its power table says "ECO", and Epson does not say the two are the same setting. We think they probably are, but that is our reading, not Epson's.
The brightness you need depends on the room. A dark room at night can live with eco. A living room with west facing windows in the afternoon may push you to full power, and that is when the higher figure applies. LG is useful here because its middle step, 28dB(A), gives you something between the two.
How loud is the room you are watching in?
The NIDCD puts whispering at 30 dB and a humming fridge at 40 dB. On paper, the quiet mode figures here, from 23 dB to 28 dB, sit below a whisper, while the full power figures, from 28 dB to 36 dBA, run from just under a whisper to above it. Our decibel chart sets those and other everyday sounds side by side.
In practice, a living room in the evening is rarely that quiet. A fridge in an open plan kitchen, a heating system and traffic outside all add to the background, and a film's own soundtrack masks a fan for most of its running time. The moment the fan matters is a quiet scene or a pause, and at those moments a box under the screen is in your line of hearing. If you watch in an apartment late at night with the volume low, the projector's fan becomes a bigger share of what you hear; our quiet apartment page covers the other machines that matter after hours.
A short throw projector in a bedroom is a stricter case, because the room is quieter and you may fall asleep with it running. Our quiet bedroom page explains why the setting behind each figure matters even more there.
Remember too that only XGIMI says where its microphone was. Every other figure here is a bare number, and a figure without a distance cannot be placed against your seat. For why that makes cross brand comparisons shaky, see why you cannot compare dB ratings across brands.
What else you will hear from a box under the screen
A warm console. Hisense is the only maker in this group that publishes what heat does: its L9Q sheet gives 29.5 dB or less at 26 degrees C, rising to 40.5 dB or less at 35 degrees C. A projector on a closed console under a sunny window runs warmer than one hanging in free air. Epson also rates the LS650 to operate only up to 30 degrees C, where its LS800 is rated to 35. Leave the vents clear.
A high pitched whine. BenQ answers this on its own site. Its 4K DLP models use high speed pixel shifting, which causes "a degree of vibration that may results in a slight or unnoticeable high-frequency noise". Most of the UST models here are DLP: the LG, BenQ, XGIMI, AWOL, Formovie, Optoma and Hisense models all list DLP or a DMD chip. The two Epsons use 3LCD and BenQ's answer does not cover them. No maker puts a number on this sound.
High altitude mode. Samsung warns that on its Premiere 5 "Noise may occur when the fan is enabled during high-altitude mode." If you live high up, expect the fan to run harder than the published figure suggests, whatever the brand.
The built in speakers. Every UST pick here has speakers in the cabinet, from Epson's Yamaha 2.1 system to XGIMI's four 15W Harman/Kardon drivers. They will cover the fan during loud scenes. They do nothing for it during quiet ones.
The trade-offs
Quiet costs brightness, and nobody tells you how much. It can also cost contrast and money. AWOL's LTV-3000 Pro has the lowest single figure here but lists a 2,500:1 contrast ratio. Epson's discontinued LS800 publishes 4,000 lumens but jumps 9 dB from Quiet to Normal. The LS650 has the lowest A-weighted eco figure here and also the higher A-weighted full power figure.
Brightness units do not line up either. Epson quotes colour and white light output, LG and BenQ quote ANSI lumens, and XGIMI, AWOL and Formovie quote ISO lumens. They are not directly comparable, in the same way dB and dB(A) are not.
Where the numbers stop
Samsung publishes no noise figure for its Premiere 9 flagship, and ViewSonic publishes none for the X2-4K short throw. Hisense's US spec sheet for the L9Q has no noise row, so we read the figures on Hisense Spain's technical sheet, where they appear as "Ruido Audible". Hisense's Australian PDF, which our main projector guide cited, refused our request this time. LG's US site blocks us, so the HU915QB figures come from LG's Canadian site for the same model number. BenQ loads its US prices by script, and we could not read any of them.
We did not measure any of these projectors. Every figure here is the maker's own, quoted as published with the unit and condition the maker attached, and checked against the maker's page or document.
