Thanks for making the video! That is useful information. I don’t think it will be too loud. Maybe only use the thing during the day?
Covering the vent tube helps with noise IMMENSELY. Also putting up some sidewalls around your table can cut down noise. If you’re up for it, building a noise filter box helps even more.
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Excellent videos of sound levels. I had not even thought of the sound level. I wonder how loud the sound will be with the air filter installed, especially since ALL of the sound will be staying inside the house. 
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I think you guys need a silencer.
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That is cool! Might be what I need. Thank you!
Do you think that either of those will help with noise outside where the vent discharges?
The muffler that @joe linked to might be worth considering - looks like roughly 10 dB of attenuation if I understood the spec ship right and assuming the 4-in muffler performance is comparable to that from the 5-in muffler.
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Those only help for noise inside. It might decrease external noise a tiny bit but not much.
Adding curves will help a good bit, and that muffler looks like it would help even more, especially if you could have it at like a 30-45 deg angle from the direction of the fan output.
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Hear it, no. But…
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Makes sense, but hope springs eternal
That’s not hard to do for my setup - there might be (4) 90° bends (or equivalent) in the run.
Mine is only about 5 ft in total length - out the back and a 90ish curve with the hose up to the window where it attaches to a 30 degree elbow to take it thru the window. More angles/curves will cut the flow and reduce the fume extraction. Quieter but potentially smellier longer when you pop the lid open.
My upstairs deck is over the window out of which the Glowforge vents. Being winter the while and being downstairs in the same room, I never was on the deck while printing. Had company over to babysit a print and went out to the deck. Noise not a problem but could smell the smoke. Doesn’t bother me since I live alone and my deck has four difference grilling implements on it so the Glowsmoke is just one more thing.
Maybe it was growing up across the street from a bunch of hogs and cattle on the three other sides. Don’t pay much attention. But it is noticeable so it is something to consider for apartment dwellers.
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It all depends on how you set it up - you can put it through a tin pipe and get it terribly loud; you can muffle it and get it very quiet.
It’s fairly quiet with the air filter.
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Thanks for reposting that noise measurement video. I remember that now and it’s probably the main reason I wasn’t concerned about indoor noise before this. @henryhbk’s video showing the outdoor noise surprised me though, and that’s more of a concern. Most of the neighbors here are retired (and therefore often cranky) so that combined with the proximity of townhome proximity to one another could create some very unhappy neighbors.
Since the GF blower seems to be located inside the GF, I’m thinking that the vane diameter on the fan/blower must be fairly small and may have to turn at a high rpm to generate the volumetric flow rate needed to properly vent the GF. If that’s true perhaps a larger external blower (turning at lower rpm) could be fitted to the GF and used instead of the GF fan/blower. I know that’s extreme, but 80 dB noise level outside our unit might be enough to PO the neighbors and I really don’t want to do that.
Is there any chance you could get some noise measurements with and without the filter? Also can you comment on whether or not the noise level @henryhbk measured at 1m from the vent discharge outside his house might be typical or not?
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Or you can have your vent right near one of your outdoor speakers, and crank Deep Purple Smoke on the Water, and nobody will notice… And yes, mine is right above my “rock” speaker, so I can run that experiment… (luckily my neighbor is as much a nerd as me, and offered me use of her multihead microscope to inspect the cuts) 
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Good one, but they will still be complaining about noise of one type or another. In 10+ years I’ve had no neighbor complaints about machine tool noise so I’m not worried about noise inside the townhome.
I’ll bet your neighbor is a little farther away than mine are - 20 feet to either side and 30-40 feet directly behind us. Being mostly older and mostly on fixed income, they tend to keep doors and windows open much more often than we do so are more likely to be affected than if were out in the country somewhere. I’m just a tiny bit nervous that I’ll end up with a GF that can only be used at certain times of the year or day/night.
Can any of you pre-release owners that also have other laser brands compare the noise from your GF and non-GF lasers? I’m thinking that if non-GF lasers tend to be more quiet that there should be possible to quiet down the GF, like the muffler that @joe mentioned upstream from here.
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Is it bad that the possibility of the smell annoying my neighbors is in the plus column for me? It’d finally be payback for all of his barbecuing (which, to be fair, smells amazing… but he doesn’t share.)
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I suspect other lasers are quieter simply because they use bigger slower fans for exhaust and a separate chiller. Glowforge is using airflow to do both exhaust and cooling and in a very compact case. With most design choices if you optimise one thing you compromise on another.
The laser at my local hackspace has a massive radial blower, which is quite noisy, but doesn’t have the high pitch whine.
I am glad I ordered a filter now as having an external exhaust sounding like a jet engine is not very appealing. I am less concerned about noise inside the house as you can’t go away and do something else while it is running anyway. I have ear mufflers with FM radio that I use when I am running my CNC router. It is only my 3D printers that run for hours unattended where the noise matters to me.
Seems like filter cartridges are going to get full pretty quick though from the descriptions of how much gunk builds up around the exhaust. I wonder if there will be any pre-release filters so we can get a review of how well the work.
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