Great question, I've been pondering (working up to doing something about) noise in my shop. It's not just the router of course. I find it best to deal with the root cause when possible so have done some homework and concluded that the one improvement (reduction in noise) that I can make with little effort is upgrading bearings. In the case of a router, I already use a variable speed control (highly recommended as even small changes in speed change the frequency and other characteristics of the noise).
Cartridge bearings are graded for precision and you can be sure that any consumer (and most prosumer) tool you buy has the cheapest (lowest grade) bearings that the manufacturer can get away with.
Higher precision reduces noise. The holy grail are ceramic balls, sometimes even available with titanium races. The ceramic balls are much lighter, harder, rounder and more precise than steel balls. Virtually all high precision machines use ceramic bearings.
Not quite ready to spend the money, but I'll let you know the results when I do.
Woody  |