For people who care about their bodies, finding the quietest blender is a very important task. Practitioners of a number of healthy diets, fitness enthusiasts, bodybuilders, and many other folks find themselves using blenders to make smoothies, shakes, and more.
While this practice has lots of great health benefits, it’s also really, really loud. This isn’t a problem that fixes itself, either – should you “graduate” to a bigger and more powerful blender, you’ll usually find that it makes even more than the blender you used before.
So how can you fix this?
As it turns out, a number of blender manufacturers make special machines that are designed to dampen noise and keep things quieter. You can also use a handful of accessories and techniques to dampen the sound even further.
Neither of these solutions are magic – you won’t make your blender truly silent while it chews through ice – but a combination of quiet equipment and dampening techniques can make a very impressive difference in the amount of noise output by your blender.
In order to help you get started, we’ve scoured the market for the best quiet blenders around. Here are our very top picks, reviewed for your convenience.
Silent Blender Reviews – Quiet Blenders With Plenty of Power
* Hamilton Beach Proffesional Quiet Shield Blender
It’s odd to call this powerful Hamilton Beach blender “cheap,” but it’s incredibly inexpensive when compared to other quiet smoothie blender options. Featuring a 1500 watt motor with up to 2 horsepower of crushing force, this noise-shielded blender is perfect for serious and casual smoothie enthusiasts alike.
First, the basics: this blender has 32 oz of capacity, four basic settings, and a smooth power dial that you can use to get things perfect. The modes include self-clean, puree, ice crush, and a generic smoothie setting. The jar, tamper, and lid are all dishwasher safe, making cleanup a breeze.
While there are some mechanical considerations given to noise reduction, this blender primarily kills noise by placing a physical barrier between your ears and the action. This barrier takes the form of a plastic noise shield that doubles as a serving pitcher. Giving the noise shield an additional function is a pretty neat idea, and it doesn’t seem to impede its ability to dampen noise at all.
The shield is undeniably effective, cutting noise by a pretty noticeable amount. It is, however, imperfect: while you can hold a conversation with this blender on, you’ll almost certainly have to raise your voice.
For many people, the big draw of this blender is not the noise dampening functionality, but rather the powerful motor. This is one of the cheapest blenders on the market that can compete with a several hundred dollar Vitamix. It’s not the undisputed equal of a pricey blender from Vitamix, but it will perform very comparably in most tests. For many households, having to blend a green smoothie for a few more seconds is a fair tradeoff for saving several hundred dollars.
The soundproof blender shield included with this Hamilton Beach blender is a welcome feature, turning an above-average blender into an exceptional one. When combined with the noise reducing blending techniques below, you’ll be able to make your 5 AM smoothies without disturbing the neighbors without spending a fortune.
* Vitamix The Quiet One Blender
Vitamix’s The Quiet One blender isn’t a true “soundproof blender,” but it’s pretty close. Vitamix is known for their high-quality, expensive blenders, and this unit is no exception. While it’s pricier than other options, it’s more powerful, can be used in a wider variety of applications, and is very, very easy to pick up replacement parts for. This means that you’ll be able to use it in lots of recipes for years to come.
Like other Vitamix blenders, the 36019-1 is really, really powerful. It’s a commercial-grade tool that can be used as a blender for smoothies, as a food processor, and as a coffee grinder or nut butter maker. You can even use it to heat soups with just the sheer power behind the spinning blades. When used for conventional shakes and smoothies, this quiet, powerful blender is crazy fast. It makes smoother shakes in noticeably less time than cheaper competing models.
VItamix’s products sell based on the brilliant recommendations of their loyal customers. While it’s tough to justify the purchase of your first Vitamix, once you do, Vitamix gambles that you’ll tell all your friends about how great your new blender is. It’s pretty easy to find videos, written reviews, and even podcasts extolling the virtues of a powerful new Vitamix blender.
The general consensus seems to be that Vitamix blenders are really, really great.
I can’t tell you whether the high cost of this blender will be “worth it” in your kitchen. What I can tell you is that this is the unit of choice of many commercial smoothie bars around the country. The combination of power, convenience, and easy repair makes it ideal for constant use, day after day.
The folks who buy these tend to use their blender daily for smoothies and several additional times a week for grinding nuts, processing food, or even making soups. This means that over a four or five year period, you’re paying just a few cents per use.
As far as noise reduction goes, the Quiet One again uses a combination of physical shield and creative internal engineering. It’s remarkably quiet when compared to other high-powered Vitamix blenders, but it still will make a moderate amount of noise. Still, you can comfortably hold a conversation at slightly-higher-than-normal volume while you operate this blender.
The power of the Quiet One is impressive, even for a Vitamix. Without all of the normal blending volume, it’s easy to forget just how fantastically strong the motor in this blender is. It takes just a few seconds to make incredibly smooth smoothies of pretty much any variety. Ice poses no issue, and the fact that you can pulverize nuts and grind coffee is a nice plus.
Overall, the Vitamix Quiet One is probably the best quiet personal blender, period. It’s quiet, it’s incredibly powerful, and it carries the weighty Vitamix name. It’s expensive, however, and while it’s decidedly better than most options from other brands, it can still be difficult to justify the cost of this premium blender.
* Ninja Professional Countertop Blender
If you’re after a simple blender for ice-free smoothies, look no further than the Ninja Professional 1000-watt blender . While it doesn’t have a sound shield, this powerful blender is incredibly affordable and surprisingly quiet while blending fruit, leafy greens, and other soft foods.
Despite the lack of a sound shield, this blender makes our list of quiet models for one simple reason: the motor isn’t huge. The 1000 watt engine that drives this blender is a fair bit smaller and quieter than the overpowered titans in the Vitamix above and the Waring below. This means that its base level of noise, pre-noise dampening, is somewhat lower.
Once you throw ice in, of course, this goes out the window. The sound of crunching through solid water is just as loud, even with a slightly smaller motor. That’s why the sound shield on other blenders is so important – it captures the noise of crushing ice and keeps it from reaching your ears. Should you stick to softer food, however, the Ninja tends to be quieter than the competition.
As far as speed, durability, and other important factors go, you’ll find that the Ninja Professional does very, very well for its cost. This ultra-budget blender has plenty of power and can make your favorite smoothies in just a few seconds. It might not match the Vitamix in speed, sure, but given how cheap it is you’ll probably find its pace to be more than acceptable. Even if you have to occasionally stir your smoothie and blend it a bit more, you’re saving a lot of money.
Overall, I’d recommend the Ninja Professional as a strong budget choice. If you’re blending spinach, juice, and soft fruit it’s pretty quiet, albeit a bit slower than top of the line models. If you’re blending lots of ice, however, or you want to take advantage of the advanced food processing and soup making functions of the VItamix, you’ll find that this blender can’t do the job quietly.
Quiet Blender Accessories And Techniques – Make Your Blender Quieter
* Waring Commercial Sound Enclosure Containers
Even if you don’t want to buy a soundproof blender, you can still find a little piece and quiet in the morning. The Waring Commercial SE1000 sound enclosure is an accessory for Waring’s 48 and 64 oz commercial blenders that turns them from noisy behemoths into quiet workhorses. It’s not the cheapest thing in the world, but that’s because it’s specially shaped to fit snugly over these particular blenders and dampen sound effectively.
The amount of noise reduction that this plastic shield provides is seriously impressive, deadening sound to the point where you can again have a conversation while you blend.
Of course, this product won’t fit every blender on the market. It will, however, fit over some of the more popular and rugged commercial blenders, making it an ideal way to build a reduce noise blender. The cost of this noise shield and a brand new Waring tends to be less than the cost of a Vitamix Quiet One. This makes this noise shield perfect for anyone who wants an extra powerful commercial blender that’s also silent on a slightly tighter budget.
The Waring Extreme Series commercial blenders are incredibly powerful, with 3.5 horsepower motors that rival the power of Vitamix blenders. They’re a popular choice among smoothie bars, restaurants, and even bakeries. If you’d like a quiet blender that’s a bit cheaper than a Vitamix, be sure to check the price of buying this noise shield and a blender to go with it.
Things You Already Have:
If a plastic noise shield can significantly reduce the noise from your blender, what about simply putting something over your blender while you blend? It turns out that this isn’t a bad idea, but it’s hard to find a container that’s the right size.
Blender shields are made of thick, clear plastic. They’re designed specially to fit over your blender’s carafe with no gaps while leaving the controls un-shielded so you can turn the blender on and off.
While you could certainly buy a really big bucket and put it over your blender, this would make it difficult to operate your blender’s controls or see what was going on inside the carafe. The bucket also might not dampen sound the same way the special plastic used in a blender shield would.
What you can do, however, is put a towel under your blender.
Dampening the vibrations of your blending machine by giving it a soft surface to stand on will go a long way towards reducing the overall noise level. Fold a towel over itself a few times and simply put your blender on top. This will help keep the counter from vibrating or resonating while you blend and will make the whole process a fair bit quieter.
You can also try to take some basic steps to dampen sound in your kitchen in general. Hanging towels from the walls near your blender will reduce the amount of sound waves that reflect off of the flat surfaces.
You can put carpets on the floor, remove framed paintings, and put soft, non-rectangular items like fruit on the counter around your blender. These basic steps will deaden the sound of your blender a little bit more and make it slightly more pleasant to use.
The Best Tips:
For the least noisy experience, make sure that your blender is in the middle of your counter, not up against a wall. The more air there is between your blender and a flat surface, the less noisy things will get. Be sure to put a towel under your blender and consider hanging a towel or another soft decoration directly behind your normal blending spot.
If things are still super loud, consider picking up a set of earmuffs with a high noise reduction rating. These won’t make your blender quieter to your housemates or the neighbors, but they will save your hearing if you crush ice every day.
If you really need to appease someone else, the best thing to do is to change when you blend. Even the best “quiet” blender that’s used with the best quiet blending techniques will still disturb an ornery housemate. If you’d like to avoid the issue entirely, simply blend things later in the morning, the night before, or when your housemates aren’t home at all. This ensures that there’s no way that they can continue to complain about the noise.
The Best Quiet Blender – Perfect Smoothies Without Hurting Your Ears
While the Vitamix Quiet One is expensive, it’s probably the best quiet blender on the market. It offers a great blend of brand reliability, power, special features, and noise reduction. It’s a commercial-grade blender that’s a great fit for both a home countertop and a smoothie bar.
For those of you who want to save a few dollars, consider picking up a Waring commercial blender instead. You can often purchase a powerful commercial blender and a specially designed sound shield for a few dollars less than a Vitamix Quiet One. You don’t get the Vitamix name, unfortunately, but Waring has a great reputation for reliability and makes blenders that can do pretty much everything a Vitamix can do.
If you’d like to save even more money, the Hamilton Beach professional blender gives you 1500 watts of blending power and a special noise dampening shield that doubles as a pitcher. It’s a great blend of low price and great convenience. While it’s not as good at grinding nuts and ice as the blenders above, it’s still a solid choice for home kitchens and smaller smoothie bars.
Finally, the Ninja Professional remains an inexpensive, powerful blender that can be pretty quiet in the right circumstances. While it lacks a noise shield, the fact that the motor is smaller than the other blenders on this page helps keep the base noise level down. It’ll still be pretty darn loud when you crush ice, however, so watch out for that!
With these basics in mind, it’s easy to choose the best quiet blender for your kitchen. Be sure to utilize proper quiet blending technique to make your silent blender as quiet as possible. You’ll be able to blend your favorite smoothies in the wee hours of the morning while respecting your ears and the ears of the people around you. Your new, high tech blender might even inspire your family members and neighbors to join in and start leading happier, healthier lives.
