Love this machine! My city water is very hard and I don’t like the taste. My ice maker in my freezer doesn’t seem to filter that out so I was buying ice all the time. I fill this with my Brita filtered water and in minutes have great (non) tasting ice! Not excessively noisy. It’s a machine...you will hear SOMETHING...but it’s minimal. Not a major difference in the two sizes of “ice bullets”, but that is of no concern to me. Machine is very easy to clean. A lifesaver in triple digit weather. Very satisfied.