I recently received my Canyon Grail with an Sram Etap groupset, and was very surprised by the noise while coasting. I had noticed the same on a recent mountainbike as well. I also read that high noise is almost a status symbol for certain riders, like someone revving his engine on a sportscar, since high end pawl based hubs are noisier from all suppliers, especially on carbon bikes that don't dampen the sound as well.
But I'm looking for a quiet ride, and the noise especially when riding with slower riders is surprising to say the least. Is this a thing, and do suppliers work either to reduce noise or increase it, or just not care to consider?
I noticed Onyx and Kappstein seem to have quiet and reliable rear hubs, but not sure want to go through the hassle of investing and changing the hub. I read Shimano also noisy, but slightly different frequency. So curious for the future if just need to get used to it or only way is to switch out the hub.
Noisy hubs can often be quieted down by lubing them with freehub grease. Since, as you say, loud high end hubs have become almost a status symbol, they often come lubed with oil instead of grease so they will be loud. I bought some Industry Nine wheels and in the manual it actually tells you to lube them with grease if you don’t like them loud.
ljsmith nailed it. I prefer them noisy on my mountain bike so I'm not sneaking up on people, but grease them on my road-going bikes. The difference is incredible on the DT Swiss high tooth ratchets.
On one of my hubs grease didn’t make much difference, but the one on my road bike was almost silent for the first few rides. It felt great swooping downhill with no freehub noise.
The noise is a result of "high engagement". Yes, some high end hubs have a nearly trade marked growl but it's really due pursuing 1 deg of crank movement instead of 3 or more degrees. This is helpful on MTB where you'll pedal a little over an obstacle, stop for a second to clear it, then pedal again. The drivetrain catching quickly is desirable. The DT350 hub in stock form has 18 points of engagement but can be upgraded to 36 or 54. Having had the 54t, the engagement is great but it was too loud for me in a road setting not too mention the engagement also increases drag. Some of the newer designs retain the high engagement with lower sound and observably lower drag.
Looking at the hub is a part of the wheel, there's real gains to be made in weight reduction and overall ride feel. Certainly consider the sound of the freehub but don't lose sight of improving the overall bike in addressing the freehub sound. I'm a fan of rim's with internal width of 24mm or more and 38-45mm rim height. I'm liking my spinergy wheelsets for the feel of the PBO spokes which improve the ride and substantially lower weight over metal spokes. IMO, other worthy companies offer great value are Light Bicycle and Far Sports (Wheelsfar.com).
Having tried grease, liquid grease, freehub oil, they are all temporary but do quiet it some. I have some Hadley hubs which are somewhat noisy but not terrible with just Dumonde freehub oil. I have 2 wheelsets for another bike, both with the exact same Sun Ringle SRC fat hubs, one is much louder than the other no matter what i try. Possibly different rims and tires, maybe even spokes play a small part in the complete sound aura emitted? Some companies I think put as much engineering into getting the sound they want and might even "tune" the hub shell to a degree (no proof of that).
Onyx makes silent hubs with instant engagement, but they are heavy comparatively and expensive. I would like to try some just to ride in pure quiet other than the tires on ground, especially at night on trails it would be nice.
