Kessil

Little disaster...

There is.
The new technology is an "inverter generator"
Key things:
Output frequency and power are not directly dependent on engine speed, so less throttling up.
It runs much cooler, so can be surrounded by noise baffles.

So generally quieter and more efficient, but costs more.
I wonder if that's what the old Honda generators used to run on which is why they're much more quiet (and expensive) than other generators, maybe patents for the technology finally expired and other companies can now create them too.
 
I left perhaps too much sarcasm and vagueness in my first post. There are two things at play here. First is the combustion unit being quiet which is a good muffler, but also path length tuning, intake design, porting, frame harmonics, and a whole host of other things. Quiet costs both build price, manufacturing quality (macro and micro), and up front engineering.

<--- Engineer with experience designing variable valve timing components.

Separate from this there is efficient and electrically smooth which will be a solid state inverter type drive (of varying quality) vs. other methods of making an AC signal.

I suspect you will find good overlap between the people who are willing to pay for a robust solution in a small light package and those who want quiet smooth electricity.

On the consumer side your DC devices (almost anything with a brick or wall wart) won't care much about how crummy your incoming electricity is. Your AC devices often will care.
 
True, things with DC power or very basic AC (i.e. heaters) you can use ugly square wave inverters which are worse than generators.

That said, if there was another issue like what we had I'd feel a bit bad about having a generator going at long hours... but do I really feel so bad to spend the extra money for a quieter inverter for the rare instances that this happens .... ehhhhh :D
 
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