hate the noise of a vacuum

[cv3]

I have a 1hp Jet canister dust collector I use on the SS and other equipment and a Delta air cleaner. The Delta is a portable triangle shaped unit I hung in the shop. The Jet is not real noisy. I have it on one of those remote switches and can turn it on and off as I need it. The delta is very noisy. If I am going to have then both on I have the ear plugs in. The combination does a good job of dust control in my small shop.

[mckenziedt]

I have the following: and my observations on each:
-In the Garage shop: A close to 50 yr old TeCo shop vac(A private labeled Shop Vac Corp made unit). I bought it at a garage sale almost 40 yrs ago. It is all metal and amplifies the SCREAM. Finer dust goes in the hose and out the exhaust. I only use it now to lend out or pick up nasty stuff.
-In the Garage shop: A 7 yr old Craftman, large higher end model, with an after market washable pleated filter. Very powerful. Great pick up. Quite noisey in spite of a muffler on it, but the plastic canister tones it done some. Fairly clean exhaust.
-In the basement work shop area: A 5 yr old small 4 gal. Shop Vac with an after market washable pleated filter. Makes a lot of noise for such a small unit. The plastic canister doesn't seem to help much on this one. Decent but not great pick up. Filter plugs up quickly due to the small clearance between it and the tank. Fairly clean exhaust.
-In the basement work shop area: A small cylindrical portable counter top dust filtering unit. Fairly quiet but somewhat ineffective except in the immediate vicinity of where it is situated. Very portable though, so if I move it around the room, it gets more of the airborn dust eventually.
-Any where and every where: A DeWalt 18V battery unit. Small and not very powerful. Fairly quiet. But SURE is handy for small jobs, no having to lug it around and get out a cord, crawl behind furniture or tools to plug it in; just pick it up(probably under 10 lbs) and go use it.
-In the Garage shop: A new General 1 1/2hp Dust Collector. 1200 cfm. 5" intake. A loud rumble, not annoying. Serious gathering power. Good large filter hood.
-In the Garage shop: A 16 yr old SS DC3300 bought used last year. Will be headed to the basement work shop if I put my no.2 SS MkV down there. Slightly less noisy,but slightly higher pitch than the General. Not an annoying sound though.
-In the Garage shop: A new General 1200 cfm ceiling mount dust filtering unit for air cleaning. Haven't installed it yet. The theory is it circulates all the air in the room and grabs the small airborn dust particles, thus preventing much of the dust from settling out onto surfaces. On high speed it is about as noisy as the DC3300. On low speed it is very quiet.
- In the whole house: A central vacume unit, power unit is in the garage. Very quiet in the house, somewhat noisy in the garage, but not as bad as the big Craftsman shop vac, as it is exhausted to the outdoors and has an inline muffler on the exhaust section. High suction power.
I certainly agree with all of you who find lower frequencies less annoying than higher pitched ones, even if they are of similar decibels. The typically larger diameter of dust collector hoses and the slower air speeds also seem to keep the sound frequency of the rushing air more in the roaring(lower freq.) range than the whistling(higher freq.) range, in spite of the much larger air volumes pulled in by the larger but slower speed impellers of dust collectors.
-Note: Using an air hose to dust and clean out machines has a detrimental impact on dust spreading(but it is SO tempting and easy).
Don