A dust collector is the machine in the shop you stop hearing until it is off. It starts with the table saw, runs through every cut on the planer, and in a garage or basement shop it is rarely more than a few steps away. It keeps running between cuts too, while you measure and set up the next board, unless you walk over or reach for a remote.
This guide covers stationary shop dust collectors: single stage bag and canister units, and two stage cyclones. It does not cover the small tool-triggered units that plug into a sander or track saw. Those are in our guide to the quietest dust extractors.
We read the product pages and manuals for more than sixty collectors from nine brands sold in the US, and found maker noise figures for more than forty. Sixteen are in our catalog. The rest appear below where they help.
Why there is no single ranking
Dust extractors have a standard test, EN 60335-2-69, and most makers use it. Stationary collectors have no test that US makers agree on, and every brand states noise its own way.
Oneida prints dBA at 10 ft. Laguna prints "dB" at 9.8 ft, except on one model where it prints "dBA". JET and Powermatic print "dB" at 9.84 ft, which is 3 m, in their cyclone manuals, and "dB" at 3 ft, as ranges, for their bag and TurboCone collectors. Harvey prints a dB(A) range at 3 m across its speed range. Grizzly and Shop Fox print "dB" with no distance at all. WEN prints 71 dBA at 22 ft.
Two rules follow. A figure printed as dBA is A-weighted, which discounts low frequencies the way the ear does; a figure printed as dB without the A may or may not be, and none of these makers says. So we never rank a dB figure against a dBA one. Our explainer on dBA covers why the letter matters. Second, sound pressure falls as you step back from a machine, so a figure at 22 ft reads lower than the same machine at 3 ft. We rank only figures stated at the same distance.
That leaves six groups, and a pick at the top of each group that has more than one member.
A-weighted at 10 ft: Oneida
Oneida Air Systems lists a noise level on each of the seven collector pages we read with a fixed figure, always in dBA at 10 ft. The Dust Cobra is lowest at 73 dBA, then the V-3000 at 74, the V-3000 SMART Boost at 77, the Supercell at 80 and the Mini Gorilla at 80.5. Oneida's 5 HP high vacuum cyclone is listed at 75-81 dBA and the Dust Gorilla Pro SMART Boost at 75-87 dBA; those are ranges with no speed or setup given for either end, so we leave them out of the order.
The Dust Cobra is not a conventional collector. It is a high-pressure HEPA cyclone that moves 245 CFM at 23 inches of static pressure, closer in behavior to a large extractor, and it suits sanders and small-port tools. The V-3000 is the whole-shop cyclone in the group: 3 HP, 1,349 CFM, and one decibel above the Dust Cobra. Oneida says the V-3000's stacking sound filter and internal silencer take up to 6 dBA off the system, and both come in the box.
A-weighted at 3 m: Laguna X|Flux and Harvey
Two makers give an A-weighted figure at 3 m. Laguna's X|Flux:5 page reads "69 dBA ( @ 9.8ft)". Harvey's manual for the GYRO AIR G-700Pro and G-800Pro reads "Noise Rating @3m 60-71dB(A)" for both.
Harvey's figure is a range for a variable speed machine, 2,400 to 4,200 rpm on the G-700Pro. Harvey's page says the level depends on the speed setting, and neither the page nor the manual says which speed gives which end. We do not rank a range against a single value, so the X|Flux and the G-700Pro sit side by side here, not in order. One more wrinkle: the G-700Pro product page FAQ says "61 to 72 dB(A), depending on the speed setting", one decibel above the manual. We quote the manual.
dB at 3 m: Laguna, JET and Powermatic
This is the biggest group, and the only one where three makers can be ranked together. All print "dB" without the A, at 3 m: Laguna writes 9.8 ft, JET and Powermatic write 9.84 ft (3m), the same distance rounded differently.
Laguna's P|Flux:1 is lowest at 70 dB. JET's JCDC-1.5 follows at 75. Then a cluster at 76: Laguna's B|Flux:1 single stage canister unit, the P|Flux:2 and P|Flux:3, and JET's JCDC-2 and JCDC-3. Powermatic's PM2200 is at 78, Laguna's C|Flux:1 at 82, and the C|Flux:2 and C|Flux:3 at 88.
The Laguna pairs show how much the design around a motor can matter. The P|Flux:1 and C|Flux:1 share a 1.5 HP motor, 1,314 CFM maximum airflow, a 25 gallon drum and the same dimensions on Laguna's pages. The P|Flux adds a HEPA cartridge and automatic filter cleaning, and is listed twelve decibels lower. Laguna does not explain the difference, and it costs $1,100 more.
dB with no distance: Grizzly, Shop Fox and Laguna D|Flux
Grizzly lists a "Sound rating" on most of its cyclone pages, and markets some as the Quiet Series, but gives no distance or weighting. The G0991 horizontal cyclone is lowest at 71 dB, then the wall-mount G0990 at 73, the Growl-Tech G0975 and G0976 at 74 and the G0977 at 75. The G0860 and G0861 portable cyclones are listed at 78 and the G0862 at 79. Laguna's D|Flux pages use the same style, 78 dB for the D|Flux:1 and 79 for the D|Flux:3.
Shop Fox, whose website redirects to Grizzly's, lists its W1869 at 79 dB. Its page gives the same 1,941 CFM, 11 inch static pressure, 45 gallon drum and 31 by 54 by 82 inch size as Laguna's D|Flux:3, which is also listed at 79. Neither maker says the two are related.
Within this group the order holds, but a figure with no distance cannot be placed against any figure that has one. The G0991's 71 dB may or may not be quieter than the P|Flux:1's 70 at 3 m.
Close up and far away: JET, Powermatic and WEN
JET's DC-650 bag collector manual gives "Sound Rating at 3 feet 65-70 dB", and the DC-1100VX manual 70-80 db at 3 ft. Powermatic's TurboCone manuals give 75-90 dB at 3 feet for the PM1300TX and 86-92 db for the PM1900TX. All four are ranges with no condition for either end, at a distance where you would stand to change a bag.
WEN sits at the other extreme. Its DC3401 manual gives "Noise Rating (At 22 Feet)" 71 dBA, the only figure at that distance. At $154.30 it is the least expensive collector here, a 660 CFM bag unit on rollers. WEN's manual for its larger DC1300 gives no noise figure.
What the numbers mean in a small shop
Roughly every 10 decibels sounds twice as loud, so the twelve decibels between Laguna's P|Flux:1 and C|Flux:1 is more than a doubling, while the one decibel between Oneida's Dust Cobra and V-3000 is barely noticeable. Our decibel chart sets these figures next to everyday sounds.
None of these ratings tells you how the collector sounds with ducts attached, blast gates open and chips rattling through the pipe, and no maker says what it had connected when it measured. Quiet also costs money. The lowest figure in each ranked group belongs to a machine sold on its filtration or its enclosure: the HEPA Dust Cobra, the HEPA P|Flux:1 and the enclosed G0991. None of the three is the least expensive collector its maker sells.
Placement matters more than any gap on a spec sheet. A collector in a closet or the next room, with duct running through the wall, puts a barrier between you and the fan. Oneida and Grizzly both sell wall-mount units partly for that reason. Our overview of a quieter workshop covers the tools the collector serves, and the table saw guide covers the machine it most often runs beside.
Brands we checked
Rikon's US dust collection category lists bags and filters for its 60-1750 and 60-2500 cyclones but no collector pages, so Rikon is not included. SawStop's site blocked our requests, so SawStop is not included either. We did not include brands sold only in the UK.
We did not measure any of these dust collectors. Every figure is the maker's own, quoted as published with the distance and weighting the maker gave, and we say so where the maker gave neither.
