A couple of things I want to note, more "big picture" thoughts. Anything with a motor at head-height will be noisy. If you really want quiet, get an inline blower, or put the motor on your roof (do searches on this forum on these topics, and be prepared to spend $$$). If you go on the Bathrooms Forum, you'll see people complaining about noise from bathroom exhausts at 80 cfm, much less a kitchen exhaust at 600+cfm. So people need to accept the laws of physics that a motor at head height will be noisy.

Setting that aside, one of the biggest contributors to noise, and is not mentioned in your OP, is the ductwork. There may be subtle noise differences between a VAH squirrel cage vs. baffle filters, but they'd be far outweighed by differences in size of exhaust duct diameter if a hood has a duct that is too small. If you have air forced through a too-small space, it will be noisy. Exhaust efficiency will also be curtailed. Hoods will have their duct requirements posted with their specs. Most of the time the required duct diameter is 8" or 10". If you want less noise, I'd start with checking your duct diameter.

I used to have an older VAH hood. It worked very well, and I was pleased with its efficiency. Quality-wise, it was built like a tank (idk if the new ones still are). IMO, it was harder to clean than a baffle filter hood because the VAH has several more parts that need to be cleaned, while the baffle hood is just the baffles. My advice is to go to a store with them on display, and ask the salesperson to take it apart--including the squirrel cage itself--so you can see what would need to be cleaned. Last piece of advice - if the salesperson shows you a hood on display and turns it on and says look how quiet it is, do not take that for reality. At the store, the hood isn't connected to ductwork, and the noise level in the store is pretty meaningless.

kaseki, as you noted while there is a lot of information in the archives on this site and others, as it becomes dated it becomes obsolete. Do I value company XX reviews more or less or not at all before or after a buyout by another company or major product lines changes? In the kitchen appliance world especially, I don't value old reviews very highly because of the buyouts, globalization, and other bad business practices where a company "name" is purchased and then slapped on every piece of of cr@p they can make a buck on at the expense of brand loyal customers.

Also as you noted, the marketing of specific performance parameters in a "sterile" lab may not match "real world" differences seen by real users in real applications. Propeller tip "noise" is something I am familiar with but, props aren't shielded from our ears by cages, hoods, baffles, etc.

Since I don't have access to "live" demos of the products in question, I must rely on informed opinions of others to form my choice. The "salesmen" I spoke to all had an agenda not that different from a 'used car salesman" expounding why the car on their lot was better than all other cars so, I was really more confused after my trip to the stores than before. I have been burned before on kitchen hood selection so, I am trying to spend my money wisely and get something that is fair value for money and actually works well. The reality of a budget also means I cannot spend lavishly on a hood and get the oven/cooktop or stove that requires a high performance hood too.

As usual, your review is spot on and right to the point. While my question my seem repetitive, you took the time to respond in a very insightful and knowledgeable way and I appreciate it VERY MUCH. THANK YOU!

friedajune, you are correct about the bathroom fan issue. I have had my share of experiences with cheap bathroom fans that rattled not from high CFM issues but, close proximity with no barriers to my ears. A small motor with an unbalanced fan in a thin structure will rattle, typically with a high pitched rattle or whine every time.

Your point about duct work is spot on too. My 6" duct MUST be replaced. I also don't want the WHISTLE that would result from a 1200CFM hood in a too small duct. The Elica has dual 8" ducts.

Remote fans would be nice but, their cost is unrealistic for my budget constraints. My cheap Kenmore and Vent-a-Hood experiences have not been good. Cleaning both was a real PIA with lots of tight corners and creases and, grease in the duct opening was not very reassuring either. While I am not worried about the fire fighting abilities of baffles, which I assume is why I see them in commercial kitchens almost exclusively, they do seem to be better at keeping grease where it CAN be cleaned (i.e. out of duct work).

I also want the hood height where it won't bang my head, which is what was done to help the weak hoods capture as much of the effluent as they could. My current hood is at 22 inches and is only marginal at capturing everything off a weak four burner electric coil cooktop. The poor vision is not only an artifact of the low hood position but, large shadows and poor lights. So, another thing in favor of the Elica is its 3 x 40W halogen lights.

High speed surfaces moving relative to the air shed vortices (even flagpoles do in a breeze, which is why flags flap). The vortices induce air turbulence. The turbulence dissipates by converting energy to sound pressure waves and to heat.

Larger, lower tip speed fans will be quieter for a given air flow than smaller higher tip speed fans. This may be observed in the quiet but large air motion obtained by a Casablanca type ceiling fan.

Unfortunately, decent performance from cooktop ventilation hoods tends to require features that are expensive. For example, to keep down head banging, one puts the hood at 30 to 36 inches above the cooktop. For adequate capture of the rising and expanding cooking plume effluent, the hood has to overlap the cooktop by enough to match the expansion.

Unfortunately, the ability of a hood to capture effluent outside the
boundary of its aperture is very limited due to rapid air velocity
drop-off past the aperture edge, so high and small doesn't work without
an extremely noisy and powerful blower. (Sabre jet intake duct at 40
feet is the image that comes to mind.)

This forces the hood aperture size to grow as the height increases, the hood size overall to grow, the required air flow rate to grow to keep the aperture's specific air velocity high enough, the duct size to grow, the blower to grow, and the MUA source or system to grow. All of this growth adds cost, variously as the square or cube of the ratio of higher to lower heights.

As I've noted in threads here before, you can choose to maximize only two from among performance, aesthetics, and affordability, or strive for some balance among them. This trade is not easy given the limited ability to observe operating hoods in situ, and the near absence of useful, consistent performance data. If one is weighting his trade toward performance and cost, then characteristics derived from commercial hood configurations would seem to be best as cost effectiveness is paramount in commercial settings where the cost of ventilation is one of the highest, if not the highest costs borne by the business.

I will not recommend hoods I haven't personally used, so any recommendation of mine would be limited to only one large island model likely not applicable in this case. Others on this forum have reported on their experiences with more modest sized and priced models (Zephyr comes to mind) and these threads should be hunted down. The number of active members here tends to fall with the economy, and with the completion of their projects, so recent information should be expected to be limited. I hope someone else happy with his sufficiently-recent-to-be-relevant hood selection will pipe up with a mini-review for you.

kas

I have a VAH and while I can't compare the noise level to anything else, it's not silent. Voices don't have to be raised, but I do turn up the tv volume when it's on. I wouldn't call it noisy at all, but moving air does make noise and I don't think there's any silent system that does a good job.

The lighting is excellent and it very easy to clean.

For purposes of the discussion, I am a user/owner. I currently have a 36" Vent-A-Hood and in a previous home a 36" Best by Broan unit. I also have a 36" Bluestar range top. I am tickled pink with both the VAH and the Bluestar. I inherited the Vent-A-Hood from the previous owner. I uninstalled the VAH and reinstalled it when I did a complete kitchen renovation. I kept the VAH.

Now, here follows an opinion. I like the Vent-A-Hood squirrel cage over the Broan baffle. Both make noise. That's physics. No changing it. They both remove smoke and fumes. When pressed to offer an opinion, I think the VAH is a little quieter. My VAH is technically too small, it's 36" 900 cfm over a 36" range top. It should be 39", but I didn't want to replace it for three inches. I also should have more cfm according to the specs, but I don't plan on running all six burners at full blast at the same time. What I have is just fine for how I used it. Don't let someone sell you too much or too little. Use some judgment.

I read the owners manual for instructions on how to disassemble. Once I understood how it worked and how to disassemble it for cleaning, I was completely satisfied. Once the components are out, you drop them in the dishwasher. There is no need to clean the squirrel cage motor assembly. Only the other removable pieces. They have a couple of release clips and two screw knobs. No tools required. Even if you could clean the squirrel cage motors, they would be grease covered immediately upon reuse. They are supposed to be covered by grease. It's how they work. It's a fine unit. Built like a Sherman tank.

It really comes down to personal opinion. I like the VAH. I like the technology. I like the fire safety. I like the fact that it is privately owned and manufactures in the US. I really like the additional heat lamps and drop down shelves. They take the place of a warming drawer. I like it. I don't sell them. I use them. I hope this helps.

Thanks for the Elica info / link - they have a flush mounted hood that might be a design solution for me! (and their Horizonte model is about the most minimalist one I have seen!)

I have a Venta Hood 60" placed 34" from counter top/range top per Venta Hood's recommendations. I can't compare this hood to others (had a Braun something or other way back) First, the height placement has been a major contention issue in this houshold with my husband cutting his head open numerous times. The corners are extremly sharp. Why or how this happens, I don't know as he doesn't cook but does he complain each time. The installers had it way higher and my husband wanted it higher. I said it needs to come down to be functional. Down it came. I at 5'4 glide under it without trouble and I'm the cook. It functions the way it is supposed to.

The noise factor from my point of view is huge. I have two dual blowers. When I have one switch on it's pretty hard for me to hear what is going on in the dining room or living room. If I have 4 switches on, forget me hearing anything. Depending on who we are entertaining, it can sometimes be a plus for me:)) I was told just the movement of air would create noise even if it was an external on the roof operation. I can't speak to that. All of the research I did was back in 1998 and I honestly don't remember the details.

Cleaning things is not hard but awkward. I have to get up on a step stool bend at an awkward angle into and under the hood ( sort of like a pretzel) to remove parts clean hood etc. I took the squirrel cages off a few times at the beginning and ran them thru the dishwasher. The paint started to flake off and I decided that in all likelyhood they would get a coating of grease in a short time and I've stopped doing that. The grease flies off and really doesn't collect there. I do take the other parts off which are grease laden and easy to clean. When my husband is around, he removes and installs them for me so being taller makes it easier and not a lower back pain procedure,

Inga

At the other extreme my 66-inch Wolf Pro Island hood can be talked across at full power (nominal 1500 CFM roof mounted blower) because the blower is remote (and large in blade diameter) and the duct path includes a Fantech silencer (muffler). There is also a possibility that one company's baffle design is quieter than that of another -- a condition nearly impossible to evaluate by inspection, or even by audition, given all the other differences that can affect perceived noise.