Product review (5 stars): Excellent Quality Professional Grade Hood at a Value Price
We chose this hood after extensive research, and are extremely pleased with it.  It is a beautiful design of excellent construction, and has every feature we wanted and none we didn't.  And it is an excellent value for the price.

We replaced an existing 36" electric cooktop with a far more powerful 36" Bosch natural gas cooktop.  The existing Dacor hood had been in the house over 25 years, and while still running strong, it was underpowered (at 350 CFM rated when new) and was, frankly, a large white ugly box.  All of our appliances are white (including the new Bosch cooktop) and we wanted a hood that would fit the look of the other appliances.  We were not aware of the KOBE brand, but learned a lot about it on gardenweb and several other forums, then read a number of excellent reviews about the company's products.

We chose this model based on the 6 features most important to us:

1)  High CFMs at low noise.  Choosing a hood involves some basic common sense science based on fluid dynamics, but it comes down to a couple of rules of thumb.  The first is that you want a hood to be capable of drawing enough air for the power of the range or cooktop it is venting.  We learned that the generally accepted rule of thumb is 10 CFM for each 1K BTU.  In our case, the Bosch cooktop was rated at 75K BTU, so we were looking for a hood with a minimum rating of 750 CFM.  +1 for KOBE.  This rule eliminated most of the budget hoods.

Another rule of thumb we learned is that you want the hood to be larger in width and depth than the cooktop by 6 inches in both directions if possible, and as close in height to the cooktop as possible while still allowing a clear line of sight.  Of course, in an under cabinet mounting, this is not possible - this rule of thumb really applies to islands, and for under cabinet mounting, the side cabinet walls and full backsplash constrain and channel the airflow.  So we wanted a hood to extend outward over the front burners further than the old Dacor had, but not block our line of sight of the back burners, even if they had large stockpots on them.  The old Dacor was 6 inches high, and 3 inches less deep then the KOBE - it did not cover the cooktop completely.  The KOBE covered our entire cooktop, yet is only 2 inches in height - this combination gave us an even better line of sight to the rear burners AND better coverage.  +1 for KOBE on line of sight, and another +1 for coverage.

Finally, the KOBE is extremely low noise at any setting.  We are especially impressed with it's "QuietMode" feature, where the hood exhausts 300CFM at only 40dB.  +1 for KOBE.

2) Baffle filters rather than mesh.  Both baffle and mesh filters on good hoods are made of stainless and should be dishwasher safe.  However, we wanted baffle filters for several reasons.  A baffle filter doesn't even look like a filter, but it is more effective than a mesh filter (albeit more expensive).  A hood is most important for dry heat cooking, especially for sauting at high heat (with or without oil) and less important for moist heat cooking (such as boiling or steaming).  Sauting and deep frying brings a cold wet food (like a chicken breast) in direct and immediate contact with much hotter oil or the pan surface.  When the heat forces water out of the tissue of the chicken breast, it vaporizes into steam explosively, causing oil droplets to become airborne.  In even higher heat scenarios, such as pan blackening, smoke particles are formed from the thermolysis of proteins and sugars.

As the hood is operating, these grease and smoke particles are pulled through the filter.  A mesh filter works by trapping these particles to the fibers of the mesh, so much of the grease will stick to the filter.  The mechanism is simple - brute force collision of the grease particle with the dense stainless mesh.  Smoke particles will adhere to this grease.  Pretty soon, the filter will loose a lot of its ability to pass air, as the mesh gets more thickly covered.  So the effective airflow drops rapidly and the smoke particles (and their odor) stay trapped in the kitchen.  And because the mesh is so dense, it is harder to get clean in a dishwasher.  So we didn't want mesh filters.

Most high end hoods use baffle filters.  A baffle filter uses overlapping bars that cause the vented air to flow through and around them.  As the air moves through these bars, it is diverted back and forth slalom style, creating eddies or vortices.  In these vortices, the air slows, and the heavier-than-air grease particles will adhere to the bars.  Most of the lighter smoke particles will pass through and be exhasuted outside.  The KOBE's baffle filters are constructed of front-to-back overlapping bars, with a cross-sectional shape of a parabolic oval (some designs are simply rectangular) and this creates a nearly-ideal pattern to create the vortices that deposit grease particles, while still exhausting smoke particles, and not harming the efficiency of the airflow. Another +1 (a really big one) for KOBE.  Overall, the KOBE is very easy to clean.

3)  Simple, durable controls.  We did not want yet another fancy LED control panel in our kitchen.  We are subject to frequent power outages, and resetting all of these unnecessary clocks is annoying.  And unless you opt for matching appliances from one manufacturer only, all those LEDs of different sizes and colors will clash with one another.  While variable speed control is nice, it is also more prone to fail long term.  The KOBE's simple four switch system is easy to use and most likely very reliable long term.  We quickly learned the settings and found them to be very intuitive.  Mounted at the front center of the hood, they are easy to reach and locate without even looking, and work smoothly.  +1 for KOBE,

4)  Styling, fit and finish.  Simply put, the KOBE is stunning.  It is easily the best looking hood we considered.  The brushed stainless is beautifully executed.  As I said, the rest of our appliances are white, but the 2 inch low profile of the KOBE in stainless is a wonderful accent and its sleek lines had a universal appeal to us.  It looks like it costs a lot more.  +1 for KOBE.

5)  Lighting.  We were looking for a powerful, neutral light source.  The KOBE uses two sealed LED lamps which are well positioned and very powerful.  I could not find a color temperature specification for them, but they appear to be near "daylight" or in the 5000 K range.  Perfect for the size of the work area.  Should last a long time, but would be easy to change if necessary.  +1 for KOBE.

6)  Installation and maintenance.  We downloaded the manual and detailed dimensional drawings of the KOBE before purchase to ensure it would fit in our space.  The drawings were spot on, which is not always the case.  Because the KOBE is low profile, it has a taller internal structure than the Dacor it replaced, so we had to cut a new vent hole in the wall and patch the old one.  This also meant that the KOBE takes up more cabinet space than the old Dacor.  The KOBE mount is only two simple screws into the wall at the top of the unit.  The screw holes will require an extension to your drill-driver to reach easily.  We needed two people to install the KOBE - one to hold it and the other to drive the screws in.  However, one person could install it with the aid of a jack.  You will need to prep the area that you are driving the screws into by installing a solid wood block - the screw holes are significantly closer together than standard joist spacing.  If the motor should ever fail, the unit must be completely removed for service, but it is not hard, and the unit can be opened easily if necessary before installation.  The wiring harness is modular.  Once in place, it cannot be serviced.  If the KOBE cut any corner, it was on the quality of the internal sheet metal, which could have been thicker, but in any case seems fully adequate, and what would be expected at this price point.  Neutral for KOBE here.

This hood is a real winner, and we love it.  It is an excellent value for the price, and compares very favorably to other brands at 2 or more times the cost.  Highly recommended.