A table saw is the loudest tool many woodworkers own. No-load blade speeds here run from 4,000 to 6,800 rpm, every tooth hits the wood, and the operator stands a foot or two from the cut with both hands on the work. A day of ripping sheet goods keeps that noise at your ear for hours, and in a garage or a lived in house it reaches everyone else too.
Seven jobsite and compact table saws sold in the US carry maker noise declarations we could read and match to the US model. At the operator's ear they run from 85 dB(A) to 99.4 dB. Sound power runs from 98 to 112.4.
The test behind the numbers
Makers selling in Europe declare table saw noise under EN 62841, the standard family for electric tools, whose part 3-1 covers transportable table saws. It gives two quantities. LpA is sound pressure at the operator's position. LWA is sound power, the saw's total output. Each comes with a K value, the uncertainty, 3 dB for most saws here and 2 dB for one DEWALT.
We rank on LpA and show LwA beside it. Both come from the same test, but they measure different things and never belong in one ranking. The sound power vs sound pressure explainer covers why. SawStop also prints a C-weighted peak, LpCpeak, which the others do not, so we leave it out of the comparison.
None of it is printed for US buyers
Not one of the seven saws has a noise figure on its US product page, and none of the six US manuals we opened prints one; we did not open Milwaukee's. Every figure here comes from the same maker's European documents: Festool's international pages, DEWALT's UK manuals, Milwaukee's EU pages and SawStop's EU manuals.
Where the model number is the same in both markets, as with the DEWALT DWE7485 and DCS7485, the match is direct, and the US and EU manuals list the same blade, speed, depth and table size. Where it differs, we paired each US saw with the European saw that has the same specifications. Festool's US 576821 and international 576820 are both the CSC SYS 50 EB-Basic with the same battery, speed range, cutting height, rip width, weight and dimensions. SawStop's US and EU saws share the product name, weight, depth, rip and speed. Milwaukee's US and EU pages give the same 6,300 rpm, depth, bevel and rip. Each catalog entry states the pairing and the evidence.
One pairing is looser. DEWALT sells no DWE7491 in the UK that we could find, so we matched the US DWE7491RS to the DWE7492, which shares its 4800 no-load speed and 825 mm (32-1/2 in.) rip but takes a 250 mm European blade, a few millimeters smaller than 10 in. The DWE7492 manual declares the same 92.0 dB(A) for its 230 V and 115 V versions.
One caveat applies to all of them: the declarations describe the European tools, and the corded US saws run on 120 V. Where a manual gives a 115 V figure, as DEWALT's does for the DWE7485, we use it.
The Festool CSC SYS 50 declares 85.00 dB(A) at the ear and 98.00 sound power, the lowest of both kinds. It is a different kind of saw from the rest: it fits in a Systainer, weighs 33 lbs, cuts 48 mm deep and rips 11 in. For trim, flooring and panel parts inside an occupied house, that is enough, and it is the quietest option we found.
DEWALT's cordless DCS7485 declares 86 dB(A) at the ear and 100 sound power, within the uncertainty of the Festool at the ear and the lowest of any full size jobsite saw here. Its corded twin, the DWE7485, declares 91 and 108 at 115 V. The ten inch DWE7491RS, through the DWE7492, declares 92.0 and 105.2, so it is a decibel louder at the ear than the DWE7485 but three quieter in sound power.
Milwaukee
Milwaukee's European page prints 92.37 dB(A) at the ear and 103.37 sound power for the M18 FTS210, the twin of the US 2736-20, each with a K of 3. The page names no standard. At the ear it sits with DEWALT's corded saws; its sound power is lower than any corded saw here, though above the two quietest cordless saws.
SawStop
SawStop's EU manuals declare 95.4 dB at the ear and 108.4 sound power for the Jobsite Saw Pro, and 99.4 and 112.4 for the Compact Table Saw, each with an uncertainty of 3 dB under EN 62841. Both manuals print dB without the (A). The Jobsite Saw Pro is the quieter of the two by 4 dB on both counts. SawStop's EU manual for its Professional Cabinet Saw prints no noise declaration that we could find, so the cabinet saw is not ranked.
The silent aisle
Bosch's US manual for the 4100XC-10 prints no noise figure, and we found no current European Bosch saw we could tie to it with confidence, so Bosch is not ranked. The only Makita table saw we found on Makita's US site, the 2705X1, is marked discontinued. Metabo's US cordless sawing section lists no table saw, and its corded sawing section did not load. Metabo HPT's US page for the C10RJS prints no figure; HiKOKI's European page for the C10RJWAZ prints a sound power of 107.8 dB but a sound pressure entry that reads "94.8.92 dB", which we cannot read as a single number, so it is not ranked. Festool's US table saw page lists only the CSC SYS 50.
What the spread means
More than fourteen decibels separate the quietest declaration here from the loudest at the ear, far more than the uncertainty. The two brushless cordless saws at the top are a real step down from the corded saws, which start at 91. Real noise also depends on the blade, the material and the feed rate, which a standard test holds fixed, so treat the figures as a way to compare saws rather than a prediction of your shop.
We did not measure any of these table saws. Every figure is the maker's own, quoted as published, with the standard, K value and document identified wherever the maker identified them.
