Some manufacturers of stainless steel sinks brag on their web pages about the fact that they had thick pads on the bottom and sides of their sinks. These pads are usually made of recycled rubber and are needed on sinks that are made of thinner or cheaper steel to deaden the sound of water hitting the sink.
Eclipse Stainless Steel sinks have a pad on the bottom of the sink to help prevent condensation. Eclipse sinks do not need side pads because of the quality and thickness of the steel.
Almost always the more pads on a sink the cheaper the sink.
One exception is zero radius or square corner sinks. Because these sinks have large flat areas that be difficult to prevent sound additional pads will appear on these sink. We do not recommend anything less than 16 gauge sinks be used because of this issue. A 16 gauge sink will always be quieter than and equal sink in lighter gauge.
Be careful because not all sinks sold as 16 gauge are as thick as Eclipse sinks. I continually match Eclipse sinks against sinks sold as 16 gauge 304 stainless steel. Eclipse is most lustrous and heavier than nearly all of these sinks. In fact many times the sink sold as 16 gauge weights the same as the Eclipse 18 (lighter) gauge.
