Yes, that's what we hope to find but we must be looking in the wrong places or asking the wrong questions. Any ideas where to look? Big Box stores don't seem to have what we want. We had hoped the local plumbing and electrical supply, which has a very good showroom, would have what we wanted but no luck.

On Edit: I apologize, I didn't realize you were referring to a particular brand of vent hood. Thanks.

2nd Edit: using the dealer search function on the Vent-A-Hood web page I realize the local plumbing and electrical supply is a Vent-A-Hood dealer.

Vent-A-Hood Web Site

Has a dealer search function.

@nvestysly - there is some inadequate advice here (edited to note that some earlier posts here have been deleted). First, regarding hood exhaust noise, you will need the correctly-sized duct that goes from the hood to the outside. Good hoods will require either an 8" or 10" diameter duct. You could have the quietest hood made in the universe, but if the duct is too small, the hood will be noisy due to the amount of cfms being pushed through too small of an aperture. Another factor in hood noise is the number of bends the duct has before it reaches the outside - each bend adds to hood noise.

Second, a few people on this forum regularly knee-jerk recommend the Vent-A-Hood. I doubt they have owned one. While the Vent-A-Hood brand hoods work well at exhausting effluent, their squirrel cage design makes them significantly more difficult to clean than a baffle-filter hood. You will have to remove and clean individually the Vent-A-Hood blower shield, then the blower housing which is as wide as some sinks and has very sharp edges, and then the blower wheel which requires a special hex wrench to remove. After cleaning these items, you will have to put them back on.

Third, as you already know from your mention in your OP, a hood is going to be noisy because it is a motor mounted at head height. Think of bathroom exhaust fans, which are typically 85-100 cfms, and how noisy they are--meanwhile a kitchen exhaust fan is several times that amount of cfms.

What you are looking for is either (1) an "external blower" or (2) a "remote inline blower". An external blower in some ways is the quietest - it is mounted on the roof of your home. However, the noise is simply moved to outside, and your next-door neighbors or perhaps your own family sitting on your patio, will hear that noise. They're also pretty ugly sitting on your roof depending on where on the roof it would be located. Alternatively an inline blower is mounted in the duct. Noise is reduced by distance from the kitchen, and can be further reduced by adding a "duct silencer" to the inline blower.

If you decide the above choices are too difficult or expensive, I recommend you look for a hood that has baffle filters (not mesh), and ensure the duct diameter is correct with as few bends as possible. Brands to look at would be Wolf and Best/Broan, or go way up in price to the Modernaire brand. Look, a hood without external or inline blower is going to be noisy, shrug, so is your oven fan and your disposal. I would be more concerned whether the hood works well to exhaust effluent.

You must make sure your hood has proper capture area - it needs to be 6" wider than the cooktop, it should be 24" front-to-back, and be canopy-shaped.

This post hasn't even touched on make-up air ("MUA"), which you should read up on.

Supplementing the comments of @Shannon_WI, I would direct you to reading a decent sample of hood and MUA threads here to gain some overall perspective. See also @opaone's opus at https://bamasotan.us/range-exhaust-hood-faq/.

Excluding potential noise from the MUA system, the hood system noise sources include the blower blade tip turbulence noise (reduced by larger slower fans and/or intermediate silencers), duct turbulence noise (reduced by larger ducts, but duct sizing should actually be determined by balancing grease collection by impingement -- velocity too high -- and grease collection by condensation -- velocity too low), and baffle hiss (my Wolf system + Fantech silencer dominant noise source -- this cannot in general be reduced at a given blower CFM level as the airflow has to be above a minimum speed for centrifugal extraction by the baffles).

A reasonable noise level goal is one that at the CFM needed for an energetic cooking project, the cooking noise dominates the hood system noise.

This has certainly been a useful discussion. Thanks for the comments and if anyone else has some ideas please join in.

the "opus" mentioned above contains some interesting perspectives on what constitutes a good vent hood. As an engineer who has some experience on heat, air flow, etc. there are some key considerations I had overlooked prior to reading the "opus." I am a bit concerned the author seems to interchange the term velocity for CFM from time to time in the article. In the end, the author establishes some very useful parameters to consider when selecting a vent hood.

With that in mind... I do plan to investigate certain models of Vent-A-Hood as well as Wolf and some others. I like the idea of in-line and remote fan systems so that will be one of the considerations.

I'm working on a kitchen remodel and came across this YouTube video about make up air and found it amazing that they managed to silence the hood vent so much. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bMkvCn1sGvk 

Meghan Terry (and others)...

If you are willling, I'd certainly like to know the brands and model numbers of products you incorporated in your design. I realize every situation is different - not trying to copy your design - but it helps to see particulars of what others have done to allow us to dial in and find a solution that works for us.

Our hood will be 30 or 36 inches. I'm getting the sense that an 8" duct is suitable but I know it depends on CFM and other factors. For our cooking situation - not much burnt food, not much frying, generally not too spicy - but knowing that ventilation is important, the systems we are encountering are sometimes 6" so we opt to upgrade to 8". Should we be considering 10"?

Right now we are looking at Vent-A-Hood liners (no motor installed) and then using Fantech inline fan and going straight out through the roof. We also have the option of making one right angle turn and going out through the gable end of the house.

How critical is the Fantec silencer? If we use 8" duct and go straight up through the roof, is the silencer necessary? If we make the right angle turn does the silencer become more useful? I know these are somewhat subjective questions/answers but curious how others feel about their installations.

Thanks.

The largest noise source and perhaps most annoying noise is from blade tip turbulence. This is what the silencer predominately attenuates, although similar noise from duct turbulence (past the silencer) will also be attenuated. The silencer should be as close as practical to the hood, with the blower farther toward the outside outlet (if in-line).

Not having tested the hood system with and without the silencer, I cannot provide a subjective answer to "how critical." One can look at the published attenuation data to see the effect. I use a 10-inch silencer in my cooktop hood system and an 8-inch in my wall oven system.

Once actual maximum flow rate (CFM) is determined, then this value should be used with the duct diameter to calculate air velocity in the duct (ft/min). Velocity in the 1000 to 2000 ft/min is recommended. A long duct in a cold attic should be operated for a minute or so before any cooking to help warm it up.

A large slow blower (operated well below its maximum rating) might be quiet enough that the silencer is not needed. However, its added costs would be greater than the silencer.

I hope this VaH liner you have in mind has baffles; VaH's scheme of grease removal using squirrel cage motors does not use a baffle filter, and deleting their motors from a "magic lung" system would leave one without the needed filter or fire stop. I expect that with a silencer, baffle hiss will dominate the noise.

I use a Wolf hood (largest Pro Island hood, see Wolf Kitchen Guide or whatever it is called), Fantech LD-10 silencer, and Wolf (Broan/NuTone) 1500 CFM [rated at zero static pressure] down roof centrifugal blower. With passive MUA (at present pending getting to upgrade it) and no other exhaust blowers operating, I get roughly 100 ft/min at the hood entrance aperture. With about 10 sq. ft. of aperture, this implies 1000 CFM actual. This should drop some when the oven system is also operating, but I haven't measured it yet.

Your suggested goal, as mentioned for residential style hoods many times on this forum is 90 ft/min across the hood entry aperture when hot oil cooking is to be performed.

To answer your original question, yes there is, sort of. Ours is just about completely silent @ ≈500 CFM (measured) which is what we use 90% of the time. Louder at higher CFM's that are needed occasionally but more plesantly loud than most hoods. If you read my FAQ then you should have seen the section on noise.

More: https://www.houzz.com/discussions/5745986/commercial-range-hood-install

We have a 1400 CFM inline blower that runs at ≈1200 CFM rated (88% voltage) and produces actual ≈960 CFM on high. So on high it's running lower speed to full. We also have a silencer.

Make sure your blower, silencer and duct is isolated from your structure or your structure itself can become a giant speaker.

I'm confused about your thought to use a VAH hood with an inline blower. Do they have one with baffle filters designed for inline blowers? VAH is known for using centrifugal force to remove most of the grease from the air stream rather than baffles.