Emperor bio-wheel filters, at least the older ones, tend to be durable, but they were never the quietest filters to begin with and they do get noisier with age. It's been a while since I had any and years since I bought one, but I've had them last 20 years.
Along with impeller wear the fit of the box itself can be a source of noise, it deforms slightly over time, the box is not as tight, so the noise can be an alignment issue in the pump chamber. Sometimes adjusting the angle of the filter on the tank helps-- don't know about newer ones but they used to have a little angle adjustment wheel on the bottom-- eventually if that wasn't enough I'd stick something in between the bottom of the filter and the glass (like some carboard, etc.). When they'd get old enough I'd do something, forget exactly what, to squeeze the pump chamber slightly. The other source of noise can be crud in the slots the wheels fit into or on the wheel pins that go in the slots, some cleaning and even a little silicone can make the wheels run smoother if that's the case.
The last one I retired about ten years ago, was old and still running fine, just noisy.
