Jut, I'm a stay at home now and don't really need one (don't Twit or Text either), but in my traveling days(95-98) did have a Motorola 3W bag phone as big as a Boston phone book (and the 600-1,000 a month bills to go along with it) People used to gawk at while they were checking their alpha-numeric pagers. Watched Jon's vid again up til 13:20 and that's what mine sounds like. Didn't notice anything loud-sounded smooth as silk. You got to remember he hadn't used it in a year and also was Using Australian power for the first time, so maybe his cut speed had to be tweaked from his Canadian speeds? Our 2 sound like when he did his Z-zero routine. Don't think you'll find a better machine at the price that does what the Desktop does(hard to imagine at ANY price). See if you can have someone do a Demo for you so you can put your mind at ease. Not a bad idea to call Shopbot and see if anybody is close and also get a taste of what the company is like, as it's as good as their machines or better--it should be a huge part of decision in buying a machine anyways. Good luck!
scott P.
2013 Desktop/spindle/VCP 11.5**
Maine