FotonDrv wrote:I selected the 1 (one) foot distance because that was how far I am from the grinder when operating it. 1 (one) meter away is longer than my arms and I usually do not grind beans when I am not working the machine directly.

I agree, 1 foot is a shorter but more realistic distance for testing purposes. Some people may also find it difficult to hold their smartphone in their hands and action their grinders with their feet!

My grinders I would consider to relatively quite compared some of the other appliances I've bought. My previous orange juicer peaked at 107db! My hand vacuum cleaner I sometimes use to clean up stray grounds also registers above 100db. This damn universal motors lol

Anyway my measurments:

HG one: 78db grinding dark roast and 85db grinding medium roast
Baratza Forte AP: 82db grinding dark roast and 87db grinding medium roast

The other factor to consider here is how long the grinder takes to produce a shot. My K30 is quieter than the super jolly I had previously (and than the baratza vario, mazzer mini, and rancilio rocky that preceded the SJ), but even more important is that it only takes 3 seconds to grind a double. The Vario seemed only a bit louder than the K30 but my recollection is that it took 15 seconds to produce a shot -- 5 times the dose of noise for a given dose of espresso.

The Compak R120 is impressively quiet. It's grinding mechanism is surrounded by a lot of mass. Far quieter than my old Ditting 1203 ever was, and the burr sizes are identical.

Break out your iPhone Tom and measure that impressively quiet grinder, please

Hi all,
I'm still compiling data but here is what my grinder does:

*Make/Model of phone=iPhone 5
*Make/Model of grinder=Bregant... old model
*Name of decibel application you are using=Decibel 10th
*Distance between phone and grinder, preferably near your head = 1ft
*Highest recorded decibel, if your software tells you =95db
*Average recorded decibel, if your software tells you = 93db
*Background decibel without the grinder running =40db

I ran the same thing with another phone:

*Make/Model of phone = Moto Max
*Make/Model of grinder = Bregant
*Name of decibel application you are using = Sound Meter
*Distance between phone and grinder, preferably near your head 1ft
*Highest recorded decibel, if your software tells you = 88db
*Average recorded decibel, if your software tells you = 88db
*Background decibel without the grinder running = 35db

Once I get more data from people I'll make a nice pretty graph and post it here. For now, yikes! I think I've got the worst grinder of the bunch.

I am using the iPhone 5s and a Radio Shack db meter.