I don't know the actual sound of 4 sones vs 7 sones, but I do know that the futuro is good. I've bought one for this house after having one at the old house. Check these out. Noise level is important.
Lisa

Here is a link that might be useful: futuro hoods

I don't know what is the best for your kitchen and budget. This is our island hood. We like it, and it works. We wanted a copper hood with enough power to clean out the kitchen fast in the event of smoke/fumes. We went with a 1500 cfm external blower (powerful)that has a rheostat of sorts - we adjust how much it works. Noise level varies with the level we select. So far, cleaning has been simpler than my old wooden Wood-Mode cherry hood. I like metal hoods.

{{!gwi}}

{{!gwi}}

Thank you for your feedback. 1500 CFMs is A LOT! Very neat looking hood.

We found the Arietta 36 In. 400 CFM Island Mount Glass Ventilation Hood at Home Depot tonight discounted to $559 and then they took an extra 10% off because it was 'open box'. I am not certain of our choice and want to hear some more opinions. We have 30 days to take it back. We aren't ready to install it yet though so we can't really test it out. Any one have this hood or something similar? Anyone love their hood?

400 cfms is very minimal, especially across 36". I wouldn't get one that low-powered. What cooktop do you have? How wide is it? If you have an island cooktop, your hood should be 6" wider than the cooktop. You should have 100 cfm for every 1000 btu's. So if your cooktop is 60,000 btu's total you should have 600 btu hood. What are the btu's of your cooktop? It wouldn't make sense to spend money on a hood only for it to be inadequate and not powerful enough for your cooking.

I agree. I want to make sure that this is the right hood for us.

I have a 4 year old frigidaire 30" electric slide-in range (Model# PLES289DCC) but I'm having trouble finding out what kind of power the ceramic cooktop has. I found a similar (and newer) range on frigidaire's site so I'm assuming that the cooktop specs are similar. I'll keep searching though...but for now here's a guesstimate:

Surface Type: Ceramic Glass
Front Right Element: 12" 2,700 Watts
Front Left Element: 6"/9" 1,600/3,000 Watts
Rear Right Element: 6" 1,200 Watts
Rear Left Element: 6" 1,200 Watts
Center Element: Keep Warm Zone 100 Watts

Thanks for all of your help!

Does anyone know how to figure out BTU's from Watts?

transitional - Try this webpage which converts BTUs from watts and vice versa.
http://www.mhi-inc.com/Converter/watt_calculator.htm