A top load washer is the machine most people picture when they think of a quiet, simple laundry: a lid, a tub and no door seal. It is also the kind of washer whose makers say least about noise. We read the pages and manuals for the top loaders sold by Speed Queen and Midea, and checked LG, Samsung and GE for a figure. Only two brands publish one. They are not the same kind of figure, and that shapes everything below.
Our main washing machine guide ranks front loaders and top loaders together. This one stays with top loaders, and with the details that matter when the washer lives in a hall closet, a basement or the room next to a bedroom: which half of the cycle a figure describes, agitator or impeller, spin speed, the lid lock and the chime.
Our picks are listed above, with full specifications for each.
Speed Queen says its TR machines are "measuring in at only 43dB during agitation", and the TR3, TR5 and TR7 each list a spec row that reads "Quiet Agitation (43dB): YES". The sibling TC5 lists the same row as not applying. The figure is for agitation, which is the wash. There is no spin figure, and no weighting, distance or test standard.
Midea lists figures in dBA in the spec tables on midea.com. The MLTW37A1BWW gives both halves: "Wash Noise Level 64 dBA" and "Spin Noise 77 dBA". The MLTW39A1AWW lists 77 dBA for the spin. The MLTW45M4BWW lists 80 dBA for the spin. The MLTW44A4BWW lists 80 dBA under "Noise Level (dBA)", with no phase named. Midea names no test standard either.
These two groups cannot be ranked against each other. The Speed Queen figure has no A, so it is not weighted for human hearing the way a dBA figure is, and it describes only the wash. Our explainer on comparing decibel ratings across brands covers why a missing letter and a missing phase each break the comparison. So you will not find a line in this guide saying that 43 is quieter than 64. It may be. The makers have not given us the means to say so.
LG publishes a feature name instead. Its spec sheet for the WT7150CW lists the TrueBalance Anti-Vibration System and LoDecibel Quiet Operation with no number attached, and LoDecibel is a name, not a rating. We found no figure on the GE Profile and Samsung top loader pages we checked. Whirlpool's and Maytag's sites returned errors when we tried to re-check them, so we have left both out rather than rely on an older reading.
Read the page, not just the number
One Midea page shows why a published figure still needs reading. The MLTW45M1AWW impeller washer lists "Wash Noise Level 127 dBA". That is 63 dBA above the wash figure Midea lists for the MLTW37A1BWW, on a washer of the same kind. It is almost certainly an error, and we have left the model out rather than guess what Midea meant.
The MLTW45M4BWW page has a smaller slip: its title and header say MLTW45M4BWW, and the model number row in the same spec table says MLTW45N4BWW. The user manual lists MLTW45M4BWW, so we have used that. If you buy one, check the label inside the lid against the receipt.
Agitator or impeller
A traditional agitator is a post in the middle of the tub. An impeller is a low disc or cone at the bottom, which leaves more room in the tub and is common on high-efficiency top loaders. Midea describes its agitator as creating "strong, multi-directional water movement", and its impeller as moving "clothes and water together".
Makers do not say which is quieter, and we will not either. The only like-for-like figures we found are inside one brand. Midea's two agitator models list 77 dBA spinning, and its impeller model lists 80 dBA spinning, all in dBA and all for the spin. A 3 dBA gap is small but real: on the logarithmic scale, roughly every 10 dBA sounds twice as loud, so 3 dBA is a difference you might notice in a quiet room and lose in a noisy one. It is one brand's result, not a rule about impellers. For more on the scale, see dBA explained.
Every Speed Queen with the 43dB claim is an agitator model, which is part of what the claim describes: agitation.
Spin speed and vibration
On the one top loader with both figures, Midea's MLTW37A1BWW, the spin is listed 13 dBA louder than the wash: 77 against 64. That is the part of the cycle to plan around. Among the models here, Midea lists 700 for two of its agitator washers, LG lists 800 rpm for the WT7150CW, and Speed Queen lists 820 for the TR range. A slower spin leaves more water in the load, so the dryer runs longer.
Several top loaders let you choose the spin speed. LG lists three, High, Medium and Low. No maker we read publishes a figure at a lower spin speed, so we cannot tell you how much quieter it is. It is still the setting to try first if the spin is what bothers you.
Unbalanced loads are the other half of the vibration story, and the manuals are specific. Speed Queen's TR3 and TR5 guide says "An out-of-balance load may limit spin speeds", and that the wash and spin status lights flash twice at the end of a cycle if the load was unbalanced. Midea's manual says that if clothes pile to one side during the spin, the washer "tries up to three times to solve the problem automatically" before you need to redistribute the load.
The floor matters as much as the machine. Midea's manual says "Wooden floors may need to be reinforced to minimize vibration or unbalanced load situations" and never to install the washer on a platform or weakly supported structure. Speed Queen's installation instructions ask for "a clean, dry, and reasonably firm floor", warn that "flexing of weak floor will cause excessive vibration", and have you remove the shipping brace and plug before first use. A washer in a concrete basement and the same washer on a joist floor above a bedroom are different propositions. Our page on keeping a quiet basement covers why a basement machine is heard twice: in its own room and through the floor above.
The lid lock and the chime
Two sounds come from a top loader that no decibel figure covers: the click of the lid lock, and the signal at the end of the cycle. For a laundry beside a bedroom, the second one is often what wakes people.
The lid lock. Speed Queen's TR guides list clicking near the lid as normal: "The lid lock is engaging." The lid needs "to make two clicks before fully releasing" at the end of a cycle. The TR machines use what Speed Queen calls a delayed lid lock: the lid stays unlocked during the first fill and agitation, so you can add items, and locks once agitation ends. The TC5 has no lid lock; its guide says a brake stops the washtub within seconds if the lid is opened during spinning. Midea's manual says its washer makes "a series of clicking noises" before it fills, to make sure the lid is locked.
The chime. Speed Queen's TR3 and TR5 sound a three-second signal at the end of each cycle, and it switches off if you hold the Heavy Soil button for three seconds. The TR7 goes further: its Signal keypad sets the end-of-cycle signal to Off, Low, Medium or High, and separate button combinations switch off the keypress beep and the resume tone. Midea's manual for the MLTW44A4BWW and MLTW45M4BWW says to hold the Spin Only/Signal button for three seconds to turn on the end-of-cycle signal and again to cancel it. The same manual also says the washer "beeps six times after the cycle is done", so check how yours behaves on the first load.
The timer. The Midea MLTW44A4BWW and MLTW45M4BWW have a delay start of up to 24 hours, which lets the spin run while the house is empty. Speed Queen lists Delay Start as NO on the TR5 spec table. For a washer in an apartment, where the spin reaches the neighbors below, our apartment washer guide looks at delay timers in more detail.
What quiet costs
Price. The Speed Queen TR range runs from $1,449 to $1,749 MSRP for a 43dB wash claim. The Midea models with published figures were listed at $549 to $699 on Midea's site, and marked out of stock in Midea's own store, so you will buy them from a retailer.
Capacity. Every Speed Queen with the 43dB claim is 3.2 cu ft. The Midea models run from 3.7 to 4.5 cu ft. LG's WT7150CW, with no figure, holds 5.0 cu ft.
Warranty. Speed Queen gives three, five or seven years parts and labor across the TR3, TR5 and TR7. Midea gives two years limited on the models here.
Drying time. A slower spin leaves wetter clothes, so the dryer has more to do. None of these makers publishes a figure that puts a number on the trade.
Mistakes buyers make
Setting 43dB against 64 dBA. One is unweighted and wash only. The other is weighted. They do not belong in the same ranking.
Reading a feature name as a figure. LoDecibel and TrueBalance are names, with no number behind them.
Trusting an impossible number. A 127 dBA wash figure is a typo, not a warning.
Forgetting the chime. The quietest wash is little help if the washer beeps six times at midnight. Find the page in the manual that turns it off.
Blaming the washer for the floor. Both brands' manuals put floor strength, level feet and the shipping brace ahead of the machine.
How we chose
We read the product page and spec table for each top loader, and the user's guide, installation instructions or spec sheet wherever the maker linked one. We recorded every noise figure in the maker's own words, with the unit and the part of the cycle it describes. We ranked dBA spin figures only against dBA spin figures, and treated Speed Queen's unweighted wash figure as a separate group. We left out a figure that could not be right. Below that, we chose on what makes a top loader easier to live with: a switchable chime, a lid lock, a delay timer, the warranty and the price.
We did not measure any of these washers. Every figure here comes from the maker's own documents, quoted as published, and where a maker publishes no figure, we say so rather than guess.
