Dewalt shop vac are the quiet ones quiet?
The shopvac I have now is a 5gal Ridgid that worked for me for what I wanted it for but it was always painfully loud. Recently it developed an unexceptable excruciating scream over top of the loud. I took it apart cleaned and lubed and alot of that scream went away but I expect it back. Dewalt has two different models that they advertise as ” quiet”. One they call the ” stealth” model and another that is advertised as “quiet”. The “stealth” I assume is quieter than “quiet” but seems to come in large sizes and has no blower capacity. The” quiet” one is available in a 5 gallon version which will park in its designated space and does have the blower capacity which I do use. On a blustery day I open the big doors on either end on the shop ,run the vac in reverse and send billowing clouds of fine dust out of the shop. The question is ,are these ” quiet” versions quiet? How much quieter is stealth than quiet? I’ve burned through a number of shopvacs over the years and will do terrible things to them, such as, clean out the sump on my greywater system so I don’t need to be told to buy a Fein/ Festool high-end shop vac. I’ve used them – they are great but as good as they are I will kill them!
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Advertised noise levels on their webpages:
DeWalt 5 hp 9 gal Stealthphonic: 65 DBAs
Fein Turbo II: 67 DBAs
Festool CT-36: avg 65 DBAs
Looks like they all have about same noise level. Best to go to the store and check out for yourself, if you have one close enough to visit.
I've had a bunch of Craftsman, Rigid, and Shop Vac brands over the years. My Festool CT-36 is much quieter than those. The Fein is supposed to be quiet as well. That's all I know.
The advertised noise levels don't match up with our testing.
https://www.finewoodworking.com/2021/11/10/tool-test-hepa-rated-shop-vacuums
You probably know this but Ridgid makes a muffler to help reduce the noise. It fits in the discharge port. I managed to fit it onto my Craftsman. It helps some.
I did a bit of testing with my phone using the NIOSH sound meter app.
Ridgid shop vac--one of the large ones, maybe 16 gallons--ran at right around 85 db. I ran it with and without the muffler mentioned by stantheman. While the muffler changes the tone--it's lower and less irritating--it doesn't substantially change my reading. I took it from about 3 feet away. The big benefit of the muffler is that it diffuses the stream of air coming from the exhaust port, so it doesn't blow plans, dust, and shavings all over the shop.
My SawStop running a 50T blade also measures around 85 (just running, not cutting) at about 3 feet. The deeper tone makes it seem quieter (or less annoying you might say) than the vac. There is some whine from the blade (zero clearance insert installed) plus the hum of the machine.
My Fein Turbo III (the mini one) measured about 78 db at 3 feet or so. It's conspicuously quieter than the other tools. That number is also quite a bit higher than the published value.
For reference, my miter saw at operating speed but not cutting was 90 db. Horrible.
I would run the mini vac without ear protection for a time, but any of the other tools I would put muffs on for except for maybe a single quick thing, and especially the miter saw since your ears are right there. Just to give you some idea of what the relative noise levels are for comparison.
And I am with you--the shop blow-out is awesome.
I don't do much in the shop without ear protection. I have a Bluetooth connected hearing protector, and listen to books while I work. Even doing quiet things. So when I do the inevitable "just a quick cut on the miter saw" kind of stuff, they're always on.