Quote Originally Posted by John S View Post
I have seen the water cooled ones and they are quiet.
I can confirm that they are very quiet. My 2.2kW one makes less noise than the Sieg C3 lathe when the lathe is at 3000rpm and spindle at 24000rpm. 'Chip' on this forum will also confirm that the spindle itself is much quieter than a router.

When I had the router running I'd wear ear defenders - not any more!

It's the cutting noise that's the issue since it's louder than the spindle, though if you're just making PCBs the cutting noise is small.