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Comment by ulnarkressty | Hacker News Reader

Someone needs to invent something similar for sleeping. I would pay good money to have a completely silent sleep environment. Right now ear plugs are the best way, and not at all comfortable to sleep with.

Traffic, neighbors, construction - there's always something going on in a big city. Even having a detached house in the suburbs is not guarantee of a quiet night. Sleep interruption due to noise can have disproportionate impact later in life [0].

I had some ideas about a 'room within a room' spanning just the bed, and I couldn't find a good source of materials. Best bet would be to fill the whole thing with concrete and hope it's acoustically isolated from the building itself.

[0] - https://sleepreviewmag.com/sleep-health/sleep-whole-body/bra...

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There's some things you can do to quieten a bedroom passively at least. Closed windows, noise muffling vents (because fresh air is also important during sleep). Thick and heavy curtains will muffle a lot of sounds and prevent it from bouncing around, the bigger the better (wall to wall, floor to ceiling). You can have another layer of that around your bed, old style curtain beds. Carpet on the floors instead of laminate or something else.

Next level would be adding noise insulation to the walls and the like, but that's a bigger time/money/effort investment.

Moving to the suburbs or the countryside is an option, but won't be a panacea; you'll have different sounds, sound travels further, houses won't be built with city noise in mind, and they're likely to be older so less well insulated to begin with.

Anyway, passive noise insulation first, I wouldn't use earbuds or anything covering / plugging the ears, and things like white or pink noise generators are a last ditch effort (they will put constant sound pressure on your ears instead of silence, idk if that's harmful but it's something to keep in mind)

My biggest noise problem comes from inside the room, not outside. It takes a hell of a lot of layering to block out or mask the sound of my wife's snoring.

Yes, she has a CPAP, but she never uses it because she can't find masks that don't make her feel like she's trapped and choking.

There's probably going to be a growing market of active noise-cancelling earpods. QuietOn is pioneering this category (quieton.com - no affiliation), but I guess at some point we'll see it combined with a personally moulded solution.

Sold! I'll try just about anything.

You could look into mass-loaded vinyl for low frequencies and foam diffusers for high frequencies. MLV can be used on floors, walls and hung from frames, although then the frames tend to leak sound at intersections.

Vinyl off gasses and isn't suitable for use in internal air spaces.

To be fair, I off gas too when I sleep.

Mass-loaded vinyl and absorptive panels only correct frequency response in the room. It does very little to isolate you from outside noise. They will only make that noise more balanced across the frequency spectrum and do practically nothing to prevent noise from entering or leaving the room.

It's a common mistake to think that room treatment and room isolation are the same thing. But they're two different problems that require two different approaches to solve.

I tried many earplugs and the 3m ear classic NRR 33 are comfortable and silent.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B008MCTOPU

310-1101 - they are cylindrical. I used to get the similar 310-1008 but I can't find them anymore.

Other earplugs would want to expand too much and make my ears sore, or would have the wrong material and sort of adhere to my ear canal, or be comfortable but not quiet.

Those are open cell foam. For me, I find the closed cell foam "Howard Leight" style to be better, see https://www.amazon.com/Honeywell-Visibility-Disposable-Earpl...

Also 33dB NRR, but they work much better for me.

You can get custom moulded ear plugs that you mould at home for about 20-30 USD.

https://www.earjobs.com.au/collections/custom-moulded-ear-pl...

They’re not as good as etymotics but a lot comfier.

I wouldn't wear earbuds at night or for long periods of time though, ear wax buildup and whatnot.

I've slept with foam earplugs nearly every night for at least a decade now, and I've never encountered any negative effects, ear wax-related or otherwise.

I've been using 3M plugs for 4/5 years and while it's not super confortable it's much better than not sleeping or be woken up 3 hours earlier than intended (the joy of appartments..). Also most of the dirt in the ears comes from oils in the head that get on the pillow, so in my experience they get less dirty than before.

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