Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Pros: Great air movement Not too loud at high Replaceable lights Solid design Cons: Lower speed settings aren't quiet Included LED lights are not great Light fixtures are deeper than average lights, making replacements hard to find Heavy and awkward to install back two mounts Review: Looks great over my range and does a great job venting odor and smoke from the kitchen, just be sure to pop open a window to allow for airflow. At full tilt it is not terribly loud, which is truly impressive for the airflow. The terrible (for a fan) microwave that it replaced was louder and was pathetic for venting the kitchen. However, there is a big difference at the low setting. While yes the microwave basically didn't move anything at low, it was very quiet, this hood is not. At lowest setting it is quieter than high, but not by very much. I recorded the SPL at Off/Speed 1/Speed 6, see 2nd picture. It was taken about a 1 meter from the fans and I used a calibrated microphone. The average ambient was 42 dB, speed 1: 65 dB, and speed 6: 72 dB. 72 is a fine number at high, but 65 is not good for low. Speaking of the microwave (typical GE over-the-range model), it was actually LIGHTER than this thing. Yes it is that hefty, which indicates the quality of materials, but it makes for a sore back post installation. The installation is further made worse by the back two screw holes being REALLY hard to get to. You need a long screwdriver, even the extension on my drill/driver wasn't enough to reach it. In the end I came up with installing the front two screws without the hood, hook the hood on the front two and have a 2nd person stabilize while you mostly tighten the front two. Then install the back two with the hood mostly stable. The last part of my review I want to discuss the hood lights. The pre-installed lights are 2700K (soft-white) 20W equivalent and fairly narrow beam (30 degrees would be my guess). Needless to say they aren't great. To compound the issue in my case, my kitchen runs 5000K (daylight) high wattage LEDs all around, so these stick out really bad. I went looking for suitable replacements, and started at my local orange home improvement superstore. They had the kind of bulbs I was looking for (4th picture), but to my surprise they didn't fit! They were the right size MR16, and base GU10, but they were too short to be able to twist in the socket (see picture 3 for included bulb). I eventually went digging all around the internet, and found some that worked, just barely. I'm not going to link them, because I'm not entirely happy with them either. They are much brighter, wider, and 5000K so good enough, and they are included in picture 1.