White noise
 

Hi,

Has anyone ever used a white noise machine? I have a hard of hearing neighbour and his television, cranked up loud, is driving me to distraction at night when I'm trying to sleep.

Re: White noise
 

Can you just play white noise on youtube through speakers

Re: White noise
 

White house is a bit harsh in my opinion. These days things are tending to move towards more of a pink source for aiding restful sleep but whatever spectrum you use it won't be as effective as removing the intrusive noise at source. It's difficult to totally mask one noise with another. That's why noise cancelling headphones are still quite new and expensive (and not as good as the theory says they could be) - also they don't use white (or pink) noise.

I would be tempted to speak to my neighbour - you never know you might be able to get them to turn it down or use subtitles or maybe even buy themselves some headphones.

Hope this helps.

Cheers

Grim

Re: White noise
 

I tried having my clock radio tuned to static last night, it's a bit harsh, and that seemed to drown out the TV, but then the static kept me awake instead!

I have a very expensive set of NC headphones which I use in the evenings, they work quite well, but I can't sleep in them, unfortunately. I shall write the old git a polite letter. Don't really want to face him because he's a bit cantankerous and he actually scares me.

No wonder sleep-deprivation is a popular and highly effective form of torture.....

Tonight's plan is a whole bottle of wine and a Magnesium pill. Wish me luck.

Re: White noise
 

Go to the council/police.

They should be be able to have a quite word.

Re: White noise
 

Buy your neighbour some headphones for christmas

Re: White noise
 

Use earplugs? The wax ones from Boots are very good.

Re: White noise
 

An elderly aunt of mine used to have this problem with a hard of hearing neighbour and it used to drive her mad so unfortunately they fell out before anything else could be done to help resolve the problem. If it were me I'd try to have a word with the old boy having first sought advice from the local council or occupational therapy service to see what they can suggest. It may be that he's really struggling and something simple like headphones, a small speaker closer to where he sits or simply moving the TV away from a shared wall (if that's the case) could greatly improve his quality of life and serve your purpose too.

Re: White noise
 

Many years ago Arthur C Clarke wrote a short story (in the Tales from the White Hart series, IIRC) in which a character invents a "silence field" - I think it used some sort of anti-phase method. Anyway it seemed to work perfectly during a concert (again, IIRC, Clarke was having a dig at Benjamin Britten about the music). Unfortunately, what was happening was that all the sound energy was actually being stored in the device, which eventually exploded.