Everyone in my family loves to make smoothies. Given the lockdown we are making smoothies sometimes all day from early morning to late at night. The ear splitting noise and low power of our old blender was causing all kinds of headaches, real and metaphorical. We finally decided to splurge for a a new blender. After much research and debate we settled on the Vita-Mix Quiet One. It’s everything we had hoped - more than powerful for even the most challenging smoothies that include frozen fruit (great when you can’t easily get fresh produce), peanut butter and ice. They blend perfectly and quickly. It’s indeed quiet. The cone of silence that you lower over the pitcher before blending actually works. Not perfectly of course. Don’t try to put your baby to sleep and then make a strawberry banana daiquiri. But compared to our old blender - which was pretty high quality - it’s significantly quieter. No one complains anymore. And because blending time is so much shorter it’s that much more tolerable. Finally the blender’s plastic pitcher is light and easy to pour. The handle is balanced and it’s easy to hold. The lid slides on and off easily and is easily placed into and removed from the blender base. There are preprogrammed blender buttons for different times and speeds. They are easy to use and understand. Finally, the blender is easy to clean. You can put it in the dishwasher but we use it so often we usually just clean it by hand.