Orange Borg had decent post-Thanksgiving sale price on the Ridgid WD1245 shop vacuum. I'm just re-building a shop after many years, and I didn't have a vacuum, so I picked one up today. It's a 12 gallon, 5 SHP (Sears horsepower) unit.
My only experience with shop vacs are those that combine jet roar with that infernal high-pitched whine. When I switched this one on, I found it was surprisingly quiet, with very little whine. I made sure to choose one with a blower outlet so I could add a muffler, but I don't think I'm going to bother muffling this one.
Kevin