Decibel rating of my dust machines

[Brian Kent]

I down-loaded a decibel rating ap for the iPhone, which I will trust only to give comparable ratings to other machines using the same ap on the same iPhone, all from 1 meter at chest level, using the A weighting. I'll try it another time using C weighting.

Delta 50-760 (with washing machine on in the background) 72 decibels.

My 10 year old Rigid shop vac - 9 gallons, 8.5 amps 3.5 "so-called HP" - 98 decibels.

New Rigid 14 gallon 11 amp 6.0 "so-called HP" (Model # WD1450)- 78 decibels.

Jet Air Filtration System at low / med / high - 59 db / 60 db/ 62 db (no washing machine in the background).

The significant message for me is that the Delta and the Jet are easy to have on. With noise-canceling headphones they almost disappear. The old Rigid vac is awful, especially when I use it behind the combo sander. Sucks ok, but I am glad I finally lost all of the accessories and I could no longer pick it up by the handle lest the bucket falls off. I actually NEEDED a new shop vac and…

The new shop vac really is that much quieter than the old one. I believe the 20 db difference. Not bad at all for $99.

[Van Huskey]

Thanks, I always appreciate SPLs! I wish the US required standardized SPL measurements for machines like Europe does, especially dust collection.

[george wilson]

My 2 h.p. Dust Gorilla says it's 75 decibels,but I don't believe it!! VERY loud. It is in a 16x22' room w/8' ceiling,though.

[Brian Kent]

This time using C weighting:

Delta 50-760 - 72 decibels.

My 10 year old Rigid shop vac - 9 gallons, 8.5 amps 3.5 "so-called HP" - 96 decibels.

New Rigid 14 gallon 11 amp 6.0 "so-called HP" (Model # WD1450)- 76 decibels.

Jet Air Filtration System at low / med / high - 60 db / 61 db/ 62 db (no washing machine in the background).

Basically the same - both shop vacs are a couple of db's quieter when C weighted, but the difference is still 20 db.

As a bonus, the new shop vac is also far more effective in air volume and suckagicity.

[Brian Kent]

Also, my criteria for selecting the Delta 50-760 dust collector were:

1) Size of particles that could get through the bag

2) Quality of Dust extraction

3) Noise level

4) cost

[Bruce Page]

Brian, your numbers jive pretty close with what I found a few weeks ago with my iPad.

[Van Huskey]

My 2 h.p. Dust Gorilla says it's 75 decibels,but I don't believe it!! VERY loud. It is in a 16x22' room w/8' ceiling,though.

The problem here is the fact that a 75 dB rating is ABSOLUTELY useless unless the distance and the acoustical load is represented. Every doubling of the distance between the meter and the source will reduce the SPL by 3dB (halving the acoustic energy, remember dB is a log scale not linear). So giving a rating of 75 dB is like saying in respect to fuel efficiency a car gets 40 miles... to what a gallon, a quart a milliliter??? About the only thing a rating like that does is MAYBE allow comparisons between machines from the same company since one could ASSUME they test all their machines in the same way. Beyond distance the other hugely important factor is acoustic loading. Often a DC system is located in a corner which gives at LEAST Eighth Space = pi/2 steradians (1/8th freespace) loading and given the ceiling comes into play (along with the 2 walls and the floor) it is more like 1/16th freespace so in theory you are approaching a 24 dB increase in SPL versus the same distance away out doors. In the best of worlds a DC would be acoustically decoupled in a seperate room and the worst senario is in the corner with a low ceiling.

[Van Huskey]

This time using C weighting:

Delta 50-760 - 72 decibels.

My 10 year old Rigid shop vac - 9 gallons, 8.5 amps 3.5 "so-called HP" - 96 decibels.

New Rigid 14 gallon 11 amp 6.0 "so-called HP" (Model # WD1450)- 76 decibels.

Jet Air Filtration System at low / med / high - 60 db / 61 db/ 62 db (no washing machine in the background).

Basically the same - both shop vacs are a couple of db's quieter when C weighted, but the difference is still 20 db.

As a bonus, the new shop vac is also far more effective in air volume and suckagicity.

I would have thought there would be a little more variance. C weighting is usually used for SPL measurements of mid and hi fidelity sound systems where A weighting is used for environmental noise.

As an addendum to my previous post, although the 1/16th space would give a gain of 24dB in practice (the planes of the walls are not infinite and the walls are not 100% solid) the real "room gain" would probably be more like 15-18dB.

[Victor Robinson]

Wow, I didn't realize the Delta 50-760 is so quiet! I have the HF 2hp and I believe it came in at about 88db when I measured it, C weighted. I typically don't use it (and instead use my Fein vac, 67-73db) because of the additional noise - town home garage - but the Delta is worth considering!

[Darl Bundren]

I upgraded my shop-vac to one of the larger Ridgid models, and it is much quieter than my fifteen-year-old Shop Vac. Of course, even the old Shop Vac sounds mousy compared to my Clearvue--that thing sounds like a jet taking off.