They are, however, good at sounding cool.

I'm convinced they "work" when done correctly. If the current brainwave frequency is too far from the desired state, the entrainment may not work, from what I've read. I hope they do more studies.

I first found out about binaural beats and brainwave entrainment in the 80's reading a book called MegaBrain by Michael Hutchison.

I went to his seminar. There was a device that generated binaural beats via audio and some flashing lights.

I closed my eyes, put on the headphone/helmet thingie. Did the program. My mind was 100% on the ball. Pshaaaw. Felt like nothing happened. Was skeptical. Gave up on it. Took off the helmet. Stood up. And fell back into the chair. Because the brainwave entrainment put me into a sleepy state.

While I understand that placebo's are powerful, I find it hard to believe that I imagined that deep a sleep, particularly when I had decided that it didn't work.

Flash forward years later, I figured they must have an app for the iPhone by now. So I searched and found several, but settled on an app called Brain Wave, by Banzai Labs. It isn't quite as strong an effect as with the light machine combined, but it does seem to get me into a deep sleep.

I understand this is anecdotal. Try downloading an app, do a program and judge for yourself.

I'm not sure to what specific beats you've been listening to but they surely did "work". I listened to a few hemi-sync beats some time ago (http://www.hemi-sync.com/) and they've brought me the worst nightmares I've ever had. On the next they I got sick. I've also talked to people who said they've had OBE (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Out-of-body_experience) after listening to those beats. This never happened to me though. Just the nightmares. I guess it really depends on your current state, in what frequency these waves put your brain in, etc. So it's highly individual.

I hear the "warbling", but I don't get sleepy or dizzy or whatever the described effect is it.