Can't guide you much further. Sorry. I am in a similar situation looking for more energy efficiency from my setup. From my research so far it seems that variable speed pumps offer more energy savings than two speed pumps but I don't know about how quiet they are. When I renovated my pool about 5 years ago I moved all the equiptment farther away-- That helped a lot with the sound issues. My concern is that a variable speed pump may be more expensive to repair if the bearings go. I am looking into greater pump automation under the post automation by agtatt. If I can run the pumps less frequently this may improve energy cost and be quieter at night. I will be looking into some of the suggestions posted there. best of luck.