Pioneer PetStainless Steel Fountain Raindrop Design

I purchased this fountain to increase my cat's water consumption because he was battling bladder stones. Unfortunately, he has since passed away at the vet hospital due to the stress of being sick with them for so long.In the time I had introduced him to the fountain, he did happily drink from it with no problems. I noticed that he sat and drank for a much longer period of time than compared to his other bowls. Vet said his urine was very diluted, as opposed to his normal. I believe this fountain had a part in that. He still chose his old bowl every now and then, but he had probably only been around this fountain for a week.I needed a stainless steel fountain because he had chin acne from plastic dishes in the past. Originally, I went to Petco in search of a fountain - this is the very same fountain I laid eyes on, but was half the price on Amazon.As far as the noise goes, it is very quiet. It has a low hum - every now and then it would get a little louder, but that seemed to be solved by filling it with more water so the metal top and bottom do not vibrate as much. I'd guess it'd be quieter overall if it wasn't metal. Our fridge and air conditioner are still much louder than this fountain, if that gives some perspective. The design if very beautiful too - I had many people compliment me on this fountain.This fountain provides about 3 places for the cat to drink from - the large basin, the ramp, and the part where the water bubbles up. My cat wasn't picky and seemed to enjoy drinking from it in all of these places. It's also easy to take apart and clean, but is also dish-washer safe if you'd rather skip doing it by hand. I never felt that there were any hard to reach areas when I cleaned it. Took just a minute or so to reassemble. The filters are prime eligible and also half the price of what my Petco had them for, as well.My only complaint is that I don't think the instruction booklet was detailed enough. But there are plenty of videos and other media online to help you set up, clean, or troubleshoot the fountain. You can also find a PDF of the instruction booklet if you lose yours. This is my first pet fountain, so I cannot compare it to other fountains. My friend that has used fountains for years told me that she was jealous that I had this fountain and that she felt it was of good quality. I'd recommend it.

3/2014 update:Almost a year of continuous use, and still going strong with original pump. We have only had had to replace the filter at regular intervals, which is to be expected. We give it a good rinse out once a week or so to get rid of hair and bits of food that find their way into the bowl. This really helps minimize the frequency of needing to tear it completely down and scrub it out.The only thing we do to it is soak the stainless pieces in regular white vinegar every couple of months to get rid of the deposits from our hard water. But that's just to keep it looking nice, not really something we've noticed affecting the functionality of the fountain.All in all, still very happy with our purchase. Our cats drink from it quite regularly, and sometimes just sit and stare at the "waterfall".As I said in the original review, we don't have experience with any other pet fountains. But this fountain has given us no reason to feel like we should try any others.Original 4/2013 review:It took a few days for our cats to totally understand what this was for, but now we find them spending more time drinking water.Has a decent capacity, so we only have to refill about once every two days (with two adult cats), instead of at least once a day.We try to remember to wash it once a week, but have left it for two weeks without major gunk issues.Stainless steel is easy to clean up.Yes, it has a plastic shell that the pump lives in, but it's a small amount of plastic for the overall size of this thing. And we've never found gunk or film, if there is any to be found anywhere in the whole fountain, on the plastic.Filters are easy to change and not overly expensive (no more than other pump filters).Most noise we've ever heard is a low hum if we don't quite line up the pump port with the hole on the fountain top quite right, but there's never any splashing water noise.Now we have no experience with other fountains to compare to, but we also don't feel like we need to try other fountains.A pleasing purchase on Amazon, yet again.