OK, I"ll ramble on a bit on these topics. I have a Wolf Pro Island hood (60-some inches wide, made by Independent) and a Wolf 1500 cfm nominal roof fan (actually made by Broan), with a Fantech silencer in between. The hiss through the baffles at maximum speed is modest, and certainly not inhibiting to conversation (unless one is whispering sweet nothings across the cooktop). The crackle and hiss of Wok cooking is louder. The silencer (really a muffler) is the only addition you could make to reduce fan noise further. To extend Trevor's remarks, the fan blades are not perfectly aerodynamic, and shed turbulence that causes noise. Also, there will be turbulence in the ducts that produces noise. There could also be motor rumble. Few manufacturers provide the essential facts about their hoods, viz., noise versus flow rate, and pressure drop versus flow rate. Occasionally, one may run across a commercial hood with a pressure drop spec., but commercial kitchens are so noisy that baffle noise is the least of anyone's problems. I'm not sure of Independent's status at present, but ModernAire is a potential hood source, as well as Abbaka and even local sheet metal fabricators providing hoods for commercial application. (You probably won't want one that meets the commercial requirements, but derivative designs might be suitable.) Broan is another candidate source. The main goal is capture and containment, and this requires a cavity for collection and a flow rate sufficient to remove the effluent before it "reflects" back out of the hood. There are other sources of hoods, but some tend to emphasize aesthetics over function, so if function is more important, evaluate them from the point of view of capture and containment. Unfortunately, the best we can do usually is guess at the fluid dynamics taking place in a candidate hood; the truth requires careful measurement, usually with Schlieren photography to see what is happening to the effluent as a function of cfm. kas

What's the big deal? Not much more than a few bucks and a few minutes of labor separate the two. Anyway, I'm not antss or guadalupe, but I'm still capable of googling International Residential Code. As I posted on another thread: M1503.1 General. Range hoods shall discharge to the outdoors through a single-wall duct. The duct serving the hood shall have a smooth interior surface, shall be air tight and shall be equipped with a backdraft damper. M1503.2 Duct material. Single-wall ducts serving range hoods shall be constructed of galvanized steel, stainless steel or copper. Local code may prevail and allow non-smooth aluminum ducting, but that doesn't mean it's better.

I'm in your shoes as far as looking for a hood for my 30" Wolf R304, and we are looking to buy in the next few days. Our R304 has been installed since February (it replaced an older JennAir downdraft), and we haven't had any ventilation at all since then other than opening a window. We are not big into frying or woking and only occasionally do stinky food. In reality there have only been a couple of times we have even felt we needed a hood. Plus, for the most part, we only have two burners going at a time on top. Heat from the oven exhausting is an issue, and since it got hot out we have been using our electric wall oven rather than the gas Wolf so as not to heat up the kitchen too much. We live in a cold climate, so the extra heat output from the range is nice in the colder months. Our primary goal will be to have a hood to remove hot air expelled by the range in the summer heat. In the past four months there have only been max a half a dozen times when we needed to open the window specifically to deal with cooking fumes or output or smoke. And, the wall and cupboard area by the range are not showing any evidence of a lot of grease coating them. So for all of these reasons, and because we have a ton of constraints as far as hood size, we plan to go with something smaller than either option you are discussing. On our short list of hoods the largest hood we are considering is probably smaller than the smaller one you discuss. Having lived with this range already for months we are comfortable with this decision. We know it will work for us. What is best for you and your cooking style may be another story. I too have read everything here for ages now and have come to an understanding that what is recommended here as maximal is often for an unconstrained situation in a kitchen gut or in new construction where everything can be planned around the absolutely optimal hood that will take care of a range with all four burners and the oven blazing away at the same time. Many of us who are doing minor remodelings or just appliance upgrades do not have the luxury of following all of that advice. Good luck with your decision. Whether I gave you a compelling argument to go with the 10" I don't know.

I have a Broan. It's a tad noisy but works well and has been reliable. If it has a circuit board I don't what it could possibly be doing. The lights are good. I think it's an Elite E64xxx. (600 cfm 36" hood over a 30" high btu gas range.) I don't like that it has a knob for the light but it's not that bad. Does it click all the boxes for coverage and CFM? Nah, but it's certainly good enough.