I like you kitten, ...and I'm not even that fond of cats;)

Neither am I lol

I care about quiet. A lot. I run the DW at least twice a day which means I must be forced to hear it at least once from my open kitchen/family room. I can't stand listening to my Kenmore, nor do I like how it cleans. I will pay more next time for a quieter unit.

As to the toilet issue, I have a new Toto. It both flushes with a large whoosh and is very low flow. Best of both worlds. I DID pay more for that whoosh.

Our dishes go from table to DW and when I see how nice they come out using the short cycle, I don't care what it sounds like. And it is just a gentle sloshing. It's a Whirlpool--15 yr old cheapie. Wish it would last forever.

Quiet matters to me because we have an open floor plan. I don't like running it while I'm sleeping or not home because I worry about it leaking (It was leaking when we bought the house). Even if I did run it at night, our bedroom is on the same floor as the kitchen.

Ours is not just a water sloshing sound, it's quite a loud motor/pump sound. It's a 13 year old POS, nearly anything would be better.

I don't want my dishwasher to be silent. Hearing the operation and being familiar with how it should sound is important so one can note when it doesn't sound right and a malfunction is occurring. I've caught several instances of an item blocking the spray arm by noting that the spray/sloshing didn't sound normal.

I caught also a couple instances of the lid not sealing (blocked by how an item was placed, it's a DishDrawer) by noting that the pump was sounding starved for water (making cavitating noises) and promptly corrected the problem before enough water seeped out to even puddle on the floor.

You don't care about quiet because you don't actually have a loud DW. LG's are all pretty darn quiet. If you'd ever had a freight train going through a car wash in your home, you'd care! My bedroom is at the other end of the house, down a hall, and you could hear the old DW through all of that distance.

I don't need something silent, but yes, I don't want a 75 dB one either. 50-55 dB is fine. That's quiet enough to not notice it unless I really want to try to hear what's going on with it.

Apparently not :)

I echo what GreenDesigns wrote. If you've never had a dishwasher that was so loud people couldn't have a conversation in the kitchen when it was running, you likely cannot relate to the concern about noise when purchasing a new one.

I don't know if any currently on the market are as loud as those built 10+ yrs. ago that people may be replacing.

It's not the water noise that bugged me about our old one, I can hear that with our Bosch. It's was the motor!

We have an L-shaped house with the kitchen at the top and my bedroom at the bottom end of the L. I could hear that thing all the way back there, with the door closed. Also, DH snores really loudly when he eats a lot of grains (changed diet, not a problem anymore) so I'd find myself on the couch pretty often. It's nice to be able to sleep through the cycle when it's running 20 ft away.

When we first installed the Bosch, I thought we'd done something wrong because I couldn't hear any start-up noise. This was the first appliance we replaced in this house and it's set the bar pretty high. I'm still enamored with it and it's been about 3-4 years.

LG's are pretty quiet. So, even though it wasn't a deciding factor for you, you do enjoy the benefit.

I never thought that I cared. Now that I have quiet dishwashers I am spoiled. I love my 7 year old Bosches, although one of the DSes makes fun of me for wasting time walking over to the dishwashers to lay my hand on them to see if they are running.

Noise level preference is definitely a personal thing, based on a lot of factors.

We do not have an open floor plan, but the family room is adjacent to the kitchen. Twenty-five feet away, the volume of the family room TV had to be raised to hear it over the roar of the DW. Having a quiet DW is oh, so nice, especially when I'm still in the kitchen and the kitchen TV is on.

My current DW is an LG. I've had my share of kitchen aid, whirlpool, kenmore, etc. Noise was never an issue to me. However, I have never had an open floorplan, which I will when we do the new kitchen to be open to the family room. Again, I imagine I will run it at night but as I plan on buying a Miele or Asko, I'm sure it will be quiet regardless. Not that I care. ;)

It became a big issue for us after we put in a Kitchenaid that was supposed to be quiet but was far from it. It was replaced with a Bosch which actually is quiet, and you have to check the light to see if it is running. It is important to us as we often run it more than once a day. For sure when we have people over for dinner it will be running during dinner. Nice to have one that does not interrupt conversation, even if you are in the same room.

So, yes noise along with reliability is a big issue with us.

Noise is a big issue for us as the television is less than ten feet from the dw. I used to worry about running our noisy dw at night in case there was a leak.

Homes with open floor plans really do need quieter appliances.

Mine is a little too noisy because my kitchen has been opened up to my living room. The wall is being replaced, though, but not the dishwasher. I've always been a fan of kitchens that can be closed.

When I moved into this house, the dishwasher was really bad. We could hear it outside. We tried running it after going to bed and I woke up all groggy yelling at the spouse about how our horrible new neighbors were using a leaf blower in the middle of the night.

We don't have that one anymore.

Mine is pretty quiet but I still set it run when I am sleeping -- since I am upstairs, I wouldn't even hear it if it were noisy -- so no, I don't care that much!