Tim, as far as loud, there are ways to deal with that. My blower is mounted outside the shop under a doghouse seperated from the cyclone. There is hardly any noise outside (mostly motor noise). The mounting choice was due mostly to ceiling height restrictions compounded by the fact that I wanted to get a 55 gal drum under the cone which is taller than the recommended fiber drum. The exhaust comes back into the shop via 8' of insulated 10" flex duct and mounts to the paper filter. Most of the noise will come from this return exhaust. The insulated flex duct quiets the blower down remarkably. Its no problem having a normal conversation next to filter. Both my blower and the cyclone are on vibration isolators.

Cost? Hard to say. I can reasonable estimate that I spent around $500.00 on everything. I did use a Harbor Freight 5hp motor and a Jet 14" impeller. Bill doesn't really recommend this setup any longer so the motor/impeller combination could be more expensive. I used standard 6" furnace pipe and built my own blast gates. Caulked everything well. Be sure not to ever close all the blast gates at once if you go with the furnace pipe. It could collapse. This thing really draws the cfm. This large negative pressure "hole" is what it takes to move that really fine (and potentially most harmful)dust around the tool.