The effectiveness of active vibration cancellation by inducing antiphase vibration of the stator to reduce the acoustic noise emitted from a switched reluctance machine is evaluated under typical operating modes, viz., single pulse excitation, pulsewidth modulation (PWM) voltage control, and PWM current control. Measurements in both the frequency and time domains are complemented by sound pressure level measurements. It is shown that active vibration cancellation is most effective in reducing a single mode of vibration when a switched reluctance (SR) machine is operated under single-pulse excitation, and becomes less effective when more than one dominant vibration mode exists within the audible frequency range. In general, it also works relatively well when the machine is operated under fixed frequency PWM voltage control, although less effectively than for single pulse control. Further, it is shown that the technique is ineffective when the machine is operated under PWM current control since the duration of the zero voltage period varies significantly from the optimal value due to the random nature of the PWM.