Surpisingly I have not had anyone else mention the Cascade brand when talking about Canisters. I have had the Cascade since November on the 55
gal. In all honesty, I can't even hear it. I have to touch it to make sure it's running. It works great and REALLY cleans the tank. Our water is crystal clear.
My fiance takes care of the maintenance and cleaning of it, but from watching him, it's not difficult at all to take care of. With the
hob we used to have to take the unit into the kitchen to clean it and drip water on the floor as we ran with it. The cascade you just grab it and go, no water drippage anywhere. It may be "difficult" to work with at first because you're not used to how to do everything, but it comes with instructions that are very easy to follow. I think they were written for first graders. And honestly, I love instructions that were written like that because then I am SURE I know what they are talking about.
I have never used any other type of canister before so I'm not sure how it compares to others, but I strongly recommend the Cascade. With 13 Cichlid's and 2 pleco's, our water is clear and we haven't had any problems with spikes.
I don't think that I could say there's anything I don't like about it. The only thing that I WISH it had was an in-line heater. But having a heater in the tank isn't a problem so it's not really something that I don't like about it.