A cordless drill is two different tools depending on how it is working. Turning a bit through steel or pine, the drills in this survey declare 64 to 80 dB(A) at the operator's ear. Switch on a hammer mode or pick up an impact driver and the figure jumps to 92 to 100. That gap is bigger than any gap between brands.
Sixteen tools sold in the US carry maker declarations under EN 62841, the power tool noise standard, or on pages that name no standard at all. We rank drills on one quantity, sound pressure at the ear while drilling metal, and keep hammer and impact figures in their own groups beside it.
Three modes, three rankings
EN 62841 asks makers to declare noise for the way a tool is normally used, and a drill has several. Festool prints a figure for each: the T 18+3 declares 64.00 dB(A) drilling metal and 68.00 driving screws, and the TPC 18/4 declares 76.00 drilling metal and 94.00 impact drilling concrete.
Most makers print one figure per tool and do not say which mode it describes. For a drill with no hammer that is unambiguous. For a hammer drill it is not, so Hilti's SF 4H-22 at 92 dB(A) and Metabo's SB 18 LT BL at 94 sit apart from the drilling ranking, not in it. Impact drivers form a third group, declared while driving fasteners.
Within each group we compare sound pressure with sound pressure and sound power with sound power, never one against the other. The sound power vs sound pressure explainer covers why.
The drilling ranking
By declared sound pressure at the ear for drills with no hammer, lowest first (Festool's figures are for drilling in metal; Hilti and Metabo name no mode, which for a drill with no hammer can only be drilling or driving): Festool T 18+3 at 64.00 dB(A), Festool C 18 at 68.00, Hilti SF 8M-22 at 73 in its manual, Festool TPC 18/4 at 76.00 with the hammer off, Metabo BS 18 LTX-3 BL Q I at 77, Hilti SF 4-22 at 78 and Metabo BS 18 LT BL at 80.
Every one of those figures carries a K of 5 dB. A Festool at 64 and a Metabo at 77 are genuinely apart; a Metabo at 77 and a Hilti at 78 are not. Hilti also contradicts itself on the SF 8M-22: its manual says 73 and its UK page says 78, the size of its own uncertainty. We list the drill but do not build a pick on it.
Impact drivers, and the hydraulic exception
A conventional impact driver hammers a steel anvil thousands of times a minute, and the declarations show it. Hilti's SID 4-22 declares 95 dB(A) at the ear, Metabo's SSD 18 LTX 200 BL 97, and Festool's TID 18, Metabo's SSD 18 LT 200 BL and Hilti's SID 6-22 all 100.
Hydraulic drivers move the blow through oil. Milwaukee's first generation SURGE, the 2760-20, declares 87.9 dB(A) at the ear on Milwaukee's European page, the lowest driver figure here. Its successor, the 2761-20, trades some of that for more than twice the torque and declares 94, still the lowest of any current driver we found. Neither is near a drill at 64 to 80, so for jobs a drill can do, the drill is the quiet choice.
DEWALT and Makita make hydraulic drivers too. DEWALT's US page for the DCF870 calls it "our quietest impact driver" and "up to 57% quieter", measured by RMS sound pressure against its own DCF787, but prints no decibel figure, and its US manual carries none. Makita's international manual for the DTS141 oil pulse driver declares "Sound pressure level (LpA) : 80 dB (A)" in its soft impact grade under EN62841-2-2. We could not open Makita's US site to tie that figure to a US model number, so it stays out of the ranking.
Metabo prints sound pressure, sound power and K on its US product pages, the most complete North American disclosure in this survey, though it names no standard and shows no prices. Hilti prints sound pressure on its UK and Canadian pages and both quantities in its EU manuals, and sells the same model names direct in the US. Its US manual for the SF 6H-22 has no figures.
Festool publishes a figure for every mode on its international site, and its US pages for the same item names carry none. We match each US item to its international twin by name and by the torque and chuck both pages list. Prices come from the compare at prices on Festool USA's own reconditioned tool store, since festoolusa.com shows none in its page source.
Milwaukee publishes figures on its European pages only. We map the EU M18 FIDRQ and M18 FQID to the US 2761-20 and 2760-20 by the impact rate, torque and speed both sides print, and flag the match.
Milwaukee's EU pages print "Sound pressure level (Lpa)" 95.78 dB(A) and "Sound power level (Lwa)" 106.78 for the M18 FDD3 drill driver, and the identical pair for the M18 FPD3 percussion drill. A drill with no hammer and a percussion drill declaring the same value to two decimal places, with no mode named, points to one figure shared across two tools. We cannot tell which mode it describes, so neither drill is ranked, and neither is its US counterpart.
The silent aisle
DEWALT prints no decibel figure in the US manuals for its DCF850 and DCF870 impact drivers, and offers percentages instead. Milwaukee's US 3601-20 and 3602-20 manual prints none, and its SURGE pages say "50% quieter". RYOBI's US page for its 18V ONE+ HP 4-Mode impact driver prints none. Those tools may be quiet or loud; their makers' US documents do not say.
We did not measure any of these drills or drivers. Every figure is the maker's own, quoted as published, with the mode, standard, K value and document identified wherever the maker identified them.
