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Comment by executesorder66 | Hacker News Reader

I've always been confused by people that enjoy white noise. It's awful.

Here is a sample from the wikipedia page on white noise :

https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File%3AWhite...

Does anyone genuinely enjoy listening to that?

On the other hand, even though I don't, I could imagine why someone might like Brown noise (sounds almost like the ocean) :

https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File%3ABrown...

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I'd take white noise over distracting background noises (i.e., roommates, coffee shops) in a heartbeat. The point isn't to enjoy the sound per se, it's to block distractions.

But yes, I do prefer brown noise over white noise by a wide margin.

But then why choose such a horrible sound to drown out the background? Why not something easier on the ear? Personally I find the noise so jarring and intolerable I'd be more distracted by it (even on a low volume) than whatever irritating noises I'm hearing in the background.

Well that's your feeling and that's fine. But I'm okay with both white and brown noise, don't feel it's jarring. In fact, any other kind if noise distracts me

Not so much a fan of white noise either, but I like brown noise so much I wrote my own generator: https://justbrownnoise.com

This is really nice. It sounds a lot like a waterfall or whitewater. Very soothing.

"Like" is the wrong word. Silence is best, but if there are lots of auditory distractions in your environment then white noise drowns them out pretty well and just fades into a background hum for me.

The issue that I suffer from is that there is no such thing as silence. Even the sound of my breathing can be triggering, and the quietest of quiet keyboards will still set me off.

When I code I use white noise, or pink noise, but it's run through a low pass filter to trim off the harsh high ends.

I'll also add a slight comb filter then modulate the frequency with a slow LFO (around .05 hz) to give it some movement. Some extra processing then happens like a compressor to even it out a bit and add warmth.

It's quite effective, especially for noisy environments.

Do you have a sample you could provide?

At least for me, it's not listened to with the same volume you'd normally use for music or speech; white noise at that volume would definitely be awful. It's meant as barely perceptible background noise.

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