Jack wrote in :


But there are quieter ones at 1/2 the price, if noise is that big an
issue. The ONLY complaint I have with mine is the noise, and I can't
hear it with my ear muffs on.

The Ridgid WD1450 is around $100 and reasonably quiet. Ridgid, AFAIK,
hasn't posted decible ratings, so there's no way to compare. I would guess
it's in the mid-70's.

That's good to know. Another thing, besides sucking power and noise,
I want to know is the hose, is it standard 2 1/2" hose or proprietary
hose? I hate proprietary stuff.

I do too. Shop-vac has established a couple very common hose sizes here in
the US (probably the same in Canada) that work well. Constantly adapting
to other sizes is an unnecessary pain.

ALL this talk about quiet made me DAGS. A Dewalt D27905 which sells at
less than 1/2 the price of a Festool, lists as 58 decibels, vs the
loud Festool, which is 72 decibels. My ShopVac must be about a
million.

I can't hear anything running with my shop vac, cause I have to wear
ear muffs or my ears bleed... I can run my chain saw w/o ear muffs,
and it is loud. My shop vac is not just loud, it actually hurts my
ears with the high pitched, piercing, screaming noise it makes. I got
it in 1975 or 76, so can't compare to new stuff.


That would be grounds for me to replace the tool. A quiet vacuum is a
considerable upgrade on a loud noisy one. Plus, many new vacuum designs
limit the amount of dust they throw into the air (I've watched a cloud form
over a cheap shop vac), but the old one might do that just fine.

Puckdropper
--
Make it to fit, don't make it fit.