Hands-on Air Compressor sound test: Bostitch, Dewalt, Makita & California Air

In my quest for a quiet air compressor, I tested the following models:
Makita AC001
Dewalt D55140
Bostitch CAP1512-OF
California Air 2010A

I realized I cannot have both, quiet and powerful just don't exist in one machine. So I settled on the dewalt, which is in the middle. It is fairly quiet and relatively powerful. If you don't care about noise too much, go for the Bostitch! It's a great unit, very fast recovery time, light and well designed.

The Makita is, sadly, a joke. It's very light and quiet, but it's also super slow! It could serve you well if you like driving 5 nails a minute.

The California Air, touted as the quietest compressor EVER!!! is not that quiet, worse yet, it is designed so poorly that it very likely won't survive on a jobsite. Heck, it didn't even survive a day of testing, the motor seized up. There is a separate video on the issue. Before the unit seized, I noticed that the unit would kick in at 80PSI, at which point my 1.25inch pin nails were not being driven all the way into solid red oak. I attributed the fault to a bad regulator, but I realize now that the unit simply could not turn over. When pressure fell below 75PSI, it did repressurize. Further testing revealed the unit could not turn over until the tank was drained to about 5PSI. I would understand if it was -30, but it was a sunny spring day at +14 degrees Celsius. Later, the motor repressurized the tank, but instead of turning off, it seized up and went on to overheat almost to the point of melting. That's when I smelled the wires burning and unplugged it.

[VicHimself]

I just picked up the bostitch, we'll see how she performs.