We have finally moved in this month, so here is my report! We did get the VAH PRH9130, 300CFM. I like it so far, with a few caveats. It is not silent, but the noise it makes is a non-irritating whooshing sound, rather than the clattery motor-y noise made by my old builder-grade Broan. I can leave it on low the whole time I'm in the kitchen and not mind that it's going. And high isn't much louder than low. As I mentioned originally, we don't do a lot of high temperature frying or searing, but for the boiling and sauteing that I do, the 300CFM fan has been completely adequate, even when I have a big stock pot at a rolling boil on the front burner. I forgot a pan of toasting nuts the other night until they were starting to smoke, and the smell and smoke was completely contained. My only real complaint is the sharp corners on this model. They are at my forehead height, and a few times when I've leaned in to wipe the counter, I've come dangerously close to those corners. I'm think I'm getting used to it now, and hopefully will avoid bruising my head! There are VAH models that are more rounded, but they were significantly more expensive... A minor issue is that the switches for the fan and light are under the hood. It's nice aesthetically, but I have to glance under to find the switch each time. The Zephyrs I looked at have the switches on the front, and I think I would prefer that. But not a big deal.

It isn't the model you listed but we are very happy with our Kobe. It is baffle model (something like 179?) On the quiet mode & low you can hardly hear it. Totally livable on the mid mode and the high I can hear but only needed it once in 3 years.

Joe Blow-You will love your Modern Aire hood. We have a 42" 1200 cfm hood over our LaCanche Volnay and it's fantastic. Ours vents directly out the back through a 6" wall. The fan and motor aren't loud at all. We use it almost exclusively at it's lowest setting, unless searing or cooking stir fry. I've never used it at 1200 cfm. It does get loud at higher settings, but it's the movement of the air, not the machine making the noise and there's no getting away from that. One thing I will caution you on. I have propped up one of the metal "fillers" next to the baffles (there's one on each side) with a small piece of wood because it makes a whistling noise if I don't. I never called Modern Aire about it to find out a better solution or why this is happening but you might want to mention it. Despite that, I love the hood and am putting one in my new beach house kitchen this year. I especially like the infinitely variable speed and light controls and how easy it is to remove the baffles to clean them in the DW.

Broan/NuTone/Best make a large range of ventilation equipments and generally you get what you pay for as far as I can tell. However, why a "high end" appliance dealer wouldn't include some other brands is unclear. At a minimum, I would expect a Wolf dealer to have examples of Wolf hoods. (My hood is a Wolf, made by Independent before Wolf moved production in-house.) Decide how high you want the hood for good site lines and reaching to the back burners, and missing one's head, while keeping in mind that the front burners will be emitting plumes that expand as they rise, so height corresponds to increases in needed overlap -- side to side and front to back. 10 degrees from vertical measured from the flame diameters when pans are on the burners can be used for plume expansion estimation. Sketch it out. Given a height and hence width and depth, calculate the square footage of the entry aperture of the hood. For wall hoods the light bar in the front may qualify as partial or whole entry aperture area. Multiply area by 90 CFM/sq. ft. Multiply by 1.5 if you don't know all the pressure losses. Find a blower that has that result as a rated value. Decide on in-hood, in attic (in line), or on roof. Farther away is generally quieter. If there is room for a silencer (Fantech) between blower and hood then the result will be quieter still. There is a lot of dissension about ease of hood cleaning by type. I can say that my Wolf hood baffle assemblies easily remove and can be cleaned in a dishwasher. (I have ten of these, so it takes two loads.) One still wants to reach up inside and wipe the surfaces. I use Simple Green, but likely there are myriad possible choices. I have never owned a VaH, and was initially repulsed (2007) by the Magic Lung® claims. Others like them. If you have guests sitting where they can see into the hood, a baffle system may be aesthetically superior. Duct should be sized so that full power actual flow rate achieves a velocity in the duct between 1000 and 2000 ft/min for best balance between grease condensation and grease impingement. You can go lower (larger duct) if you pre-heat the duct in cold weather. On CFM focus. Standard (if that actually ever applies) residential hoods are designed to fit into residential kitchens. Commercial hoods are designed to fit into commercial kitchens. At a minimum, the typical difference is two feet of ceiling height. When the commercial hood can be built so that there is tremendous volume below its baffles, there are conditions where the specific flow rate (CFM/sq. ft.) can be reduced below the value I suggested above. This is due to "baffle averaging" resulting from the reservoir volume vs. plume steady state and transient volumetric rates. At the other extreme, residential hoods with little volume below the baffles will allow plume escape (capture failure) if the plumes are not immediately entrained into the baffle flow. And, of course, plumes not initially captured are not contained and removed except as a matter of long term kitchen (and whole house) air replacement. So CFM focus varies. Another difference is that commercial hoods are typically operated at a fixed CFM and the MUA is balanced for this case, whereas residential hoods, along with bathroom fans, etc., operate at variable CFM, and this makes the MUA control more complex.