White noise frequencies and Audio Speakers

[arivel]

Hi everyone .
unfortunately for health reasons I have to give it a try and put a pair of audio speakers in my bedroom to reproduce white noise during sleep. I need to know if the audio speakers I already own are able to reproduce the range of frequencies I need, namely that of rain and sea waves on the beach. Do you know what these two frequency ranges are?

 

[Ibix]

White noise includes all frequencies by definition. But I'd ask: do you really need ultra-faithful replication of white noise? How accurately would you be able to differentiate not-quite-perfect reproduction of it from perfect reproduction? I'd just plug your phone into your speakers, YouTube search a for sea sounds and listen to it.

 

[arivel]

it's not the accuracy of reproduction that worries me.
I try to explain myself better by giving an example (do not take the example literally, because I do not know the frequency range of my audio speakers, I have to document myself).
if some of the white noise is below the 100Hz frequency and my audio speakers play from 100Hz, some of the noise is absent.
are we understood now?

 

[Dale]

It won’t matter. The purpose is just to mask ambient sounds a bit so that you can ignore them.

 

[Arjan82]

if some of the white noise is below the 100Hz frequency and my audio speakers play from 100Hz, some of the noise is absent.

As @Ibix explained: white noise contains all frequencies by definition. So no matter the speakers you have, some of the white noise will be absent, and for by far most speakers that will be in the audible range. However, does that matter? I do not know about the medical application of using white noise for sleep, but if, as @Dale suggest, it is to mask ambient sound, it probably is not a problem. I would say: just try.

 

[f95toli]

Most of the phone apps that play rain and waves sounds are -not surprisingly- designed to work reasonably well with the speakers on a typical smart phone which are usually not great. Any "normal" speaker including typical computer speakers will be much better
My wife does sometimes like to listen to the sound of waves when trying to fall asleep and we play the sounds using a Google Home mini which has a tiny speaker; it works well.

Also, the goal with these sounds is not really to mask ambient sound (although it might work for that as well); some people just finds the sound soothing and it helps them sleep.

 

[Mister T]

it's not the accuracy of reproduction that worries me. [...] if some of the white noise is below the 100Hz frequency and my audio speakers play from 100Hz, some of the noise is absent.

If there are frequencies below 100 Hz that your speakers are not playing then you have inaccurate reproduction!

You can help with accurate reproduction by having a good set of speakers and improving room acoustics, but there is no limit to how far you can take that. You could spend thousands of dollars on speakers and turn your bedroom into an anechoic chamber. But, as others have mentioned, none of that is necessary. You need just a decent reproduction.

 

[tech99]

The lowest frequency is limited by the dimensions of the listening room. And the highest frequency might be restricted by your own hearing.

 

[Arjan82]

That's a bit of a stretch (drivers can very well be the limit for either low or high frequency...) I'm not assuming the OP wants a 10k+ audiophile system in his bedroom...

 

[berkeman]

That's a bit of a stretch

What's a bit of a stretch? Which statement did you meant to quote in your reply?

 

[Drakkith]

if some of the white noise is below the 100Hz frequency and my audio speakers play from 100Hz, some of the noise is absent.

You don't need, and probably don't want, a lot of white noise under 100 Hz. Under that the sound starts to be more like the rattling of your neighbors car when he cranks his bass up, something you probably don't want in your bedroom while sleeping.

I need to know if the audio speakers I already own are able to reproduce the range of frequencies I need, namely that of rain and sea waves on the beach.

Plug them into a phone or a computer and play a series of test sounds from across the full range of the hearing spectrum to check your speakers. Here's a website with samples from 60 Hz to 18 kHz: http://web.engr.uky.edu/~donohue/audio/fsear.html
If you don't like that one I'm sure there are plenty of other websites and even apps that allow you to play any frequency within the range of human hearing.

 

[Arjan82]

What's a bit of a stretch? Which statement did you meant to quote in your reply?

The post before:

The lowest frequency is limited by the dimensions of the listening room. And the highest frequency might be restricted by your own hearing.

But maybe 'stretch' wasn't the right wording. The point is that this is only true for high quality speakers.

 

[sophiecentaur]

The lowest frequency is limited by the dimensions of the listening room. And the highest frequency might be restricted by your own hearing.

It's not only the high and low frequencies that are affected by the room. Any normal room will have a whole lot of minor resonances (choose any distance between major items like walls, ceiling, floor and wooden furniture) and each of those will 'colour' the sound. A 'flat' spectrum of noise out of the speakers will end up full of peaks and troughs.

Our ears are more than capable of dealing with that when we listen to so-called HiFi equipment and we tend to 'hear' what the actual recorded source produced. It's nothing to worry about. We happily listen to a tiny transistor radio or phone. Only when we turn on something with 'good speakers' in an acoustically treated room do we notice just how good reproduction sounds.

 

[Keith_McClary]

the audio speakers I already own

If they have a brand name and model number you should be able to google the specifications.

 

[sophiecentaur]

If they have a brand name and model number you should be able to google the specifications.

… which will be meaningless unless the OP paid a fabulous amount for them.

 

[arivel]

the following reasoning also needs to be done.
of the whole frequency range that makes up the white noise I do not know if the ones that are good for me are all those present or if it is a small part of them. if this small part were to be excluded from my speakers then it is all in vain.

 

[berkeman]

of the whole frequency range that makes up the white noise I do not know if the ones that are good for me are all those present or if it is a small part of them.

unfortunately for health reasons I have to give it a try and put a pair of audio speakers in my bedroom to reproduce white noise during sleep.

I don't think we've asked yet where you got this medical advice to try white noise while you sleep. Did you just read it on the Internet, or did your doctor suggest that you try it? You need to look to the source of this medical advice to figure out what parts of the audio white noise spectrum are important.

 

[anorlunda]

Did you see this answer above?

It won’t matter. The purpose is just to mask ambient sounds a bit so that you can ignore them.

If the white noise does not have low frequencies, it won't mask ambient low frequency sound. Do you have the following in your ambient noise at night? Railroad tracks within 100m? Jackhammers? Earthquakes? Aussie natives playing the didgeridoo? Most likely no, you don't have much of those kinds of noise.

 

[arivel]

I have no ambient noise.
I suffer from sleep disorders.

 

[vela]

the following reasoning also needs to be done.
of the whole frequency range that makes up the white noise I do not know if the ones that are good for me are all those present or if it is a small part of them. if this small part were to be excluded from my speakers then it is all in vain.

Is there some reason you won't simply try playing the sounds with the speakers you already have and see if it works? That's the quickest and easiest way to answer your question whether your current speakers are up to the job.

 

[berkeman]

I have no ambient noise.
I suffer from sleep disorders.

Did you just read it on the Internet, or did your doctor suggest that you try it?

 

[Ibix]

So what's the white noise supposed to do? If it's just a soothing focus then exact reproduction isn't important. If specific frequencies are supposed to be important, google "youtube 100hz noise" (or whatever) and try playing a few of the results. They won't necessarily be calming, but will work as a speaker test. Can you hear them? If so, your speakers are good for it.

An experiment will beat specification documents every time.

 

[f95toli]

I have no ambient noise.
I suffer from sleep disorders.

Again, pretty much any speaker will be fine for this.

There is nothing "magical "about the white noise used and it is usually not even really noise (white or otherwise); it is literally just recorded sounds of waves at a beach or rain hitting a roof. If YOU find the sound soothing and it helps you sleep then it is all good. It is just a way to relax.

My wife has an app on her phone that the she uses occasionally, there must be dozens of sounds to choose from; some of them she finds soothing and some not; it is highly personal and has nothing as such to do with the frequency response of the speaker. All of the sounds are optimized to work on a typical smartphone speaker, meaning there is virtually no bass (which isn't really a problem if one is trying to reproduce the sound of rain). The sounds do help her sleep; I don't really mind either way ; they don't help, but I also don't find them disturbing.

The only time speaker quality would perhaps be an issue would be if you were trying to fall asleep to say the sound of humpback whales (people do use recordings of "whalesong" to relax), in this case a "bad" speaker could perhaps be somewhat problematic since those sounds can be contain quite a wide range of frequencies.

 

[sophiecentaur]

I do not know if the ones that are good for me are all those present

This is all a totally subjective matter and no one can tell you anything definitive. People with tinnitus can sometimes get relief with white noise and that condition is 'all inside the head' so measurements of any kind are not easy.

First of all you have to listen to the sound of the 'white noise' that you have. Its 'quality' (or at least the combination of the sound and your particular hearing) can be judged by what you hear. If you can identify any particular colouration and it it particularly disturbs you then go for another source of noise. Alternatively listen on headphones to see if you can identify the same colouration.

If you are suffering from a sleeping disorder then you just have to try dealing with it using the whole range of techniques that you can find. Spend a lot of time in your normal 'sleep' conditions, just listening to the sound. That could be just the sort of distraction that you need to allow you to 'let go' of consciousness. Good luck.

 

[Gordianus]

I suffer from some a sleep disorder that is somehow similar. I managed to improve my sleep with fairly standard earbuds (Sony) and my phone (Motorola). No money spent. I downloaded several sounds and tested until I found the "best" one.

 

[arivel]

thanks everyone for the replies