Brown noise vs white noise: which one to use
If a deep rumble keeps waking you, say traffic outside or bass coming through the floor, brown noise is the one to reach for. If the trouble is voices, a television through the wall or sharp sounds like a door latch, white noise does more. Brown noise is a heavy, even roar with no hiss over the top of it. White noise is the bright, even hiss, and at the same volume setting it comes across louder and sharper, which wears on some listeners by midnight. Brown noise asks more of your hardware, since no phone speaker is big enough to push the deep part out into a room, so use earbuds or a real speaker for it. Both play free in a browser at slonoise.com with no account, so your own ears can settle this in about a minute.
What’s the difference between brown noise and white noise?
The two sounds are built differently. Brown noise is nearly all deep sound, which is why you hear it as a rumble, closer to the noise inside a plane cabin than to a faucet left running. White noise is spread evenly across every pitch your ear can pick up, and most of those pitches are high ones, so what you hear is mostly hiss.
That difference decides what each one hides. Noise covers a sound when it sits near that sound in pitch, and volume anywhere else in the range does nothing for you. So brown noise covers deep sounds and leaves sharp ones exposed, and white noise does the opposite.
If you’ve met the term red noise as well, that’s the same sound under another name, which the red noise guide goes into.
Which one should you pick?
Start from the sound that’s bothering you, not from the color.
| What keeps waking you or pulling your attention | Start with |
|---|---|
| Traffic, a boiler or a heat pump | Brown noise |
| Bass or a television from the apartment below | Brown noise |
| Voices through a wall, a door, a faucet | White noise |
| Typing, a phone call two desks away | White noise |
| Snoring, which has a rumble and sharper snorts in it | Both, quietly |
| A phone speaker and no earbuds | White noise |
Two rows want a note. Brown noise covers the rumble of someone moving about upstairs, and not the thud of a dropped shoe, because a thud is a sharp sound. And when you run the pair together for snoring, keep the total no louder than either one was alone; the snoring guide works through that setup.
Why white noise sounds louder than brown noise
Switch from brown to white without touching the volume and white will jump at you. We set both recordings to about the same loudness. Your ears are much less sensitive to deep sound than to a bright hiss, so at the same volume setting white noise sounds a lot louder than brown. Take the volume down a few notches on the way across, or you end up judging white noise on how loud it is instead of on what it covers.
The same effect works in brown noise’s favor overnight. Because the deep end feels mild, brown noise can sit at a level that genuinely covers a road while still feeling like almost nothing, which is part of why people who leave a sound on for eight hours drift toward it. There’s a cost to it. A small speaker asked for that much deep sound often rattles or distorts before it gets loud enough to be any use, so a bigger speaker or a pair of earbuds is what makes brown noise work.
What to play each one through
Brown noise is the fussy one. Out of a bare phone it arrives as a thin version of itself with the part you came for missing, because the speaker is too small to move that sound into the room. Sleep earbuds flat enough to lie on fix it, and so does a speaker set a few steps from the bed. A phone speaker plays white noise intact, which makes it the practical choice when a phone is all you’ve got.
Whatever the sound comes out of, keep it quiet enough to talk over, keep it off your pillow, and play your alarm over the top once to check it still wakes you.
Brown noise or white noise for sleep?
No research settles this. Riedy and colleagues pooled the studies on continuous sound and sleep in 2021, found the results going both ways, and rated the evidence very low quality, so nobody can honestly tell you one color gets you to sleep faster. The World Health Organization’s noise guidelines run firmer in the other direction: noise disturbs sleep, and cutting the source beats covering it wherever you have that choice. A closed window or a set of earplugs may do more than any recording.
Inside those limits, pick by what wakes you and give it a week at the same quiet volume. Brown noise is what Slo listeners play more than anything else on the site, and for a full night that makes sense, since there’s nothing bright in it to get sick of. How to use brown noise for sleep covers timers and where to put the speaker, and why white noise helps sleep does the same job from the other side.
Where pink noise fits
Pink noise sits between these two, with some of the hiss and some of the rumble, and it’s the usual answer when white feels harsh by the second hour but brown leaves voices coming through. Our brown, pink and white comparison puts all three next to each other.
Questions people ask
Is brown noise or white noise better?
Neither one is better in general, because they cover different sounds. Brown noise is the deep roar that hides traffic, a boiler or bass from below. White noise is the bright hiss that blurs voices, a television and sharp sounds like a door. Pick the one that matches whatever is bothering you, and give each a full minute before you decide.
Which is better for sleep, brown noise or white noise?
Whichever one covers the sound that wakes you, since no study shows one color beating the other. Brown noise is easier to leave on for eight hours, because there’s no bright edge in it to get tired of, and it’s the sound Slo listeners play most. White noise is the better bet when voices are the problem.
Why does white noise sound louder than brown noise?
Your ears pick up a bright hiss far more easily than a deep rumble, so white noise sounds louder than brown at the same volume setting. Drop the volume a few notches as you switch from brown to white, then compare them.
Is it OK to play brown noise all night?
People do it every night, and the level matters far more than the color does. Keep it quiet enough to hold a conversation over, check your alarm still cuts through it, and keep the player off your pillow. A timer suits you better if you only want cover while you fall asleep.
Is brown or white noise better for studying?
Most people try brown noise first, because nothing in it grates over a long session. White noise does more against typing and talking nearby. Run each one against plain silence on the same kind of task, because silence wins for some readers.
Can I play brown noise and white noise together?
Yes, and it’s a fair answer when your room hands you a rumble and voices at once. Both run at the same time in the Slo mixer. Set each one lower than you’d use on its own, so the pair doesn’t end up louder than either.
Why does brown noise sound thin on my phone?
A phone speaker is too small to move deep sound into a room, so the rumble never arrives and you’re left with a faint hiss. Earbuds, or a speaker with some size to it, give you the sound this page describes.
Read next
- Green noise explained covers the color weighted toward the middle of the range.
- What is red noise explains why red and brown name one sound.
- Brown vs white vs pink noise adds pink to the comparison.
- The science behind brown noise goes deeper on what the research does and does not support.
- How to use brown noise for sleep covers level, timers and placement.
Sources
- Riedy and colleagues (2021), Noise as a sleep aid: A systematic review.
- World Health Organization (2018), Environmental Noise Guidelines for the European Region.
Explore more sounds in Slo
Stack two or three sounds, keep the blend, and let the timer stop it. Slo, on iOS, Android and Mac.
