During our kitchen remodel a little over 2 years ago, I purchased a Viking island hood off of Ebay that did not have the blower. All the literature said to use the Viking blower but I determined that was for warranty purposes. Since I was not getting a warranty anyway and what really needs to be warranted on the actual hood anyway, I purchased an inline Fantech blower and silencer that is mounted away from the hood. The same model as yours just 900 cfm. I had no problem hooking it up to the electrical switch box in the hood and the controls and light work as designed. The only problem is that I am not sure you can get a Viking supplier to sell a Viking hood without their blower as it may violate rules of distribution, that is why I started to look on Ebay. Do not rule out looking for it on Ebay as I remember there were quite a few models always available when I was looking. I was surprised to find the island hood I needed, but lucked out and saved quite a bit off both the hood and going with Fantech.

I ordered the PLFW 115.30 from them last week, shipped next day eventhough their website stated ships same day if ordered by 3pm ET. Prolinehoods were pretty responsive to a few emails I sent them. They also offer a 14 days money back satisfaction guarantee and they pay return shipping. Given this, 2 yrs warranty and its the cheapest hood I can find with 900 CFM/baffle filters, I took the chance. Worse case, I ship it back on their dime. I nearly bought a Kobe based on favorable feedback on this forum but it was $200 more for almost the same model with 760 CFM. I also find it extremely difficult to comprehend why a SS hood plus a motor blower can cost in the thousands for one of those better known brands. I know this is made by one of those China factories but what isn't these days? Even Iphones/Ipads etc are made in China. Hood will arrive Wed, so I will provide further feedback once its installed next weekend. Good luck with your search.

gemini16, As mentioned above, a "squirrel cage blower works fine for powerful and (relatively) quiet ventilation... a 600cfm internal blower with a squirrel cage and it kicks butt. You are always going to have noise from air movement, no matter where the blower is located... " Just to go back to basics : -- all hoods at a cost higher than the low-end of the market have centrifugal (squirrel cage) blowers. They do a better job than blade fans and are quieter too. -- all air moving makes some noise. Breathe in and out slowly making as little noise as possible and you can still hear "something". In the range of 250 to 400 CFM you may not find baffle filters are quieter than mesh. There are also Other advantages to mesh filters in this range of CFM. At high end of the CFM range, baffles are clearly best. "If i want to vent outside, do I need to purchase an external blower?" - NO, all blowers can send air outside. Some blowers are in-line, halfway between your hood and the outdoors. Most blowers are in the hood. Some blowers can be outdoors ("external") but this is not required in any way. HTH -David

The function of the baffles (besides being a firestop) is to extract grease particles from the larger end of the grease particle spectrum by centrifugal impingement as the air stream has to make two 180-degree turns getting to the inside of the hood. This process requires enough air velocity, but also good baffle design, forcing reversals at constrained pressure loss. Noise depends on the turbulence inherent in this process that in turn depends on how aerodynamic the baffle shapes are. No one is going to make NACA shape baffles. They will all be stamped and roughly trough shaped. I think baffle hiss will be inherent in all functional designs. It is possible that higher end hood fabricators have selected shapes that are a bit less noisy. Where blowers are used in hoods instead of remotely, the noise from blade tip turbulence will be immediately above the cook. This noise should be inherently louder than baffle noise due to the CFM being generated on smaller surface areas. Further, the blower design and rotation rate is restricted by volume available for CFM being claimed, whereas remote blowers can use axial and centrifugal designs that can utilize lower tip speeds and perhaps more CFM per dB designs. I have never examined a Modernaire or Prestige hood so I can't speculate on what specific differences might lead to the observed noise performance.