Hi, I'm Ethan Green from nosleeplesnights.com, and in this video I'm going to be testing and
comparing the sound masking effectiveness of five different white noise machines, a smartphone,
a Bluetooth speaker connected to a smartphone, and a smart speaker. Now, the reason I wanted to
do this video is that people sometimes ask me why should they buy a white noise machine when they
could just use their phone, an app, or even just a speaker that they've already got in the house.
And it's actually a really good question. There's several different reasons, but one of the main
ones that I normally give is that a decent white noise machine should have better speaker quality,
louder maximum volume, and better overall sound masking than a normal smartphone speaker. However,
once you add a Bluetooth speaker then it's a whole new ball game. So what I've decided to do is a few
basic tests in my bedroom to demonstrate exactly what I mean. Now not all of these devices have
the same sound options. These two for example only have an internal fan. So I'm going to choose the
sound which I think is going to be the most effective at sound masking for each of these
devices and then compare those. I'm going to use a basic decibel meter to measure the highest dBA
over a few seconds for each device. But I'm also going to take mental notes as to which one seems
to be best at blocking out the external world through my bedroom window, which for me at the
moment is the drone of air conditioning units and some light traffic in the distance. But then just
to make life easier and harder for each device, I'm going to play some loud dance music on my
tv next door in the living room which has quite a lot of bass. So it'll be very interesting to
see if any of them can block that out. My plan is to put the decibel meter by my pillow on the bed
and then have the devices on a table three meters away - basically by the bedroom door in between me
and the tv. If you'd rather just see the results, I'll put the timestamps in the description below
so you can jump ahead. And finally, if you'd rather see more information about each individual
device and all the features and sound options that they each have then I'll put links to the
reviews that I've done in the past. So with that said, let's get on with the first device.
Okay, here we are in the bedroom. Before we start with the white noise machines let's
have a listen to the ambient room noise - got my decibel meter here. In a second,
I'm going to stop this filming, run next door, turn the tv on so we've got the music
as well as the ambient noise through the window and have a listen. So here we go.
So, 43.8 dBA - that's the baseline. Now let's get started with the first white noise machine.
First up then we have the Lectrofan Evo. This is one that I've got high
expectations for where the volume is concerned, but also the sound quality.
This is one that I've long recommended. It's a really good white noise machine - lots
of options and really good white noise and fan sounds, so let's have a listen.
77 dBA. Okay so that's really loud, and it was really loud to listen to as well. It did a really
good job of blocking out the ambient noise - can't hear anything coming through the window.
And where the music is concerned, I can't really hear all of the music - not the lyrics and some
of the treble, but I can hear the bass still. But that's not really a surprise,
it's going to be very interesting to see if any of these white noise machines block it out. And
if this one didn't, I don't think any of the others will. The Sony speaker coming up is
going to be the only one that has a chance for that I think. So let's move on to the next one.
Here we have the Dreamegg D11. This is a budget white noise machine that doesn't
have that many sound options, so I'm going to put it on the white noise and have a listen.
70.2 dBA - it's quite loud actually, louder than I was expecting. Nowhere near as loud as
the Lectrofan Evo since it is a logarithmic scale. But still louder than I expected for
such a small device. It does block out the sound through the window, but yeah, I can still hear,
still hear the bass and a bit of the music coming from next door.
Next up we have the smartphone test, which I imagine that many people are going to be
interested in. For this one, I've got a Samsung Galaxy S8. I didn't want to use the most recent
phone but not one that's really old either. And I'm going to be using an app that's simply
called 'white noise generator'. You can find it on the Play store and I think on iTunes as well.
I'm not an iPhone user but I suspect that it's on there as well.
What I like about this one is that you can just touch the buttons to choose different noises,
and combine them as well, which is what I'm going to do in this test. I'm going to play pink and
brown noise at the same time and see how good a job this one does of blocking out the noise.
So, 70.9 for the Samsung Galaxy S8, which is actually pretty loud. It's louder than
I was expecting. However, it didn't do a very good job of blocking the music from next door.
I could still hear the lyrics, I could still hear the bass. So even though it's quite loud,
I think the sound was quite directional. I had it on the table and it's pointing towards me,
so I don't know - perhaps it just didn't fill the room with the same sound masking
white noise as some of the other devices do. Now the next interesting test though is
going to be to connect that to a Bluetooth speaker and see what difference it makes.
Okay for this next test I'm going to use the same phone and the same app and the same settings,
but I'm going to connect it and play it to my Sony SRS-XB12. Now, this is a Bluetooth speaker which
I've chosen specifically because it's a similar size as the white noise machines. It's quite
portable as well. It's not particularly heavy and it's not enormous either. And it's actually a
similar price to some of the white noise machines. I didn't want to go ahead and buy the world's most
expensive speakers because I just don't want to buy one - I don't need one and also I think it
would be an unfair comparison. I think it's quite obvious that if you connect some incredible Sonos
speakers onto your walls and then play white noise through them, it's going to blow these
machines out of the water. But if you're someone that's on a lower budget and you don't want to
spend hundreds and hundreds on the world's best speakers, or thousands, then this is a speaker
which you can afford. At the moment I think it's around 60 dollars. So let's have a listen.
Okay, so the Samsung Galaxy phone connected to the Sony Bluetooth speaker idea looks like it was a
good one because it came out at 73.6 dBA, which is loud. It's not as loud as the Lectrofan Evo,
but more importantly, it did a really good job of blocking out the music next door. As I was sitting
here I couldn't hear anything - not even the bass. So for me, it looks like we've probably already
found a winner in this test with the Bluetooth speaker - very interesting. But let's find out
if the other white noise machines have any chance of blocking out the music to the same extent that
this one did. Next up we have the tiny little Lectrofan Micro 2. I thought I'd include this
one just to see what difference it makes if you use one of the smallest white noise machines that
are out there. Not expecting particularly loud volume or great sound masking from this one,
but I am expecting something because I actually quite like this little speaker. It's a really
good one for portability and it does have some decent sound options. So let's have a listen.
69.3 dBA for the Lectrofan Micro 2, which isn't as loud as the others so far, but it's pretty
good I thought considering its size. When it came to blocking out the music next door,
I could still hear the bass which is kind of what I expected. But yeah, it blocked out everything
else and the ambient noise, so yeah, pretty good job considering how tiny that one is.
Okay, here we have the Snooz, This is a white noise machine that has an internal
fan. There's no recordings, no speaker, so it's going to be interesting to see if
it has any chance of blocking out the sound from next door.
So 66.4 for this Snooz, which isn't bad actually. It's louder than I expected
considering it only has an internal fan. But yeah, nowhere near as loud as the Lectrofan Evo,
for example. It does a good job of blocking out the ambient noise coming through the window - the
air conditioning units, but yeah, I could hear quite a lot of the music from next door still.
Here we have the Dohm Uno. It's actually an older model,
still says Marpac, but Marpac merged with Yoga Sleep, and it's just the Dohm Uno now.
I'm expecting this one to be very quiet. It's historically a device which is very quiet.
It just has an internal fan as well like the Snooz, so let's have a listen.
55 dBA for the Dohm Uno. That's the quietest so far, and yeah, I suspect it's going to be
the quietest overall. It didn't do a good job of blocking out the music next door at all. I
could hear literally everything. I think you can use it to block out some of the ambient
noise from outdoors, but yeah, this is one that's going to be better for relaxation than
sound masking if you've got a lot of noise to deal with.
And finally, we have the Echo Dot third generation. This is the smart speaker that
I use at home. Considering it's so small it has a really good speaker. I really like this
one - I listen to jazz FM on this one a lot while I'm waiting for it to tell me when my
egg is boiled and what the temperature is outside! But I think if you've got a smart speaker at home,
then you probably don't need to buy a white noise machine if it's in the room that you
already want to listen to white noise, which is why I've included this one. So let's have a
listen and see if it's also as good at blocking out music next door as it is at playing me my
jazz FM in the morning (Alexa says "pink noise mid-loopable by Matthias Juski from Spotify")
So, 74.2. That's a pretty good result for the Echo Dot - very loud and filled the room with sound as
well, so I was quite impressed with that one. It blocked out everything coming through the window
and most of the music. But yeah, like most of the other devices it didn't quite block out the bass
for me. But yeah, overall as a smart speaker it did a good job of playing me white noise.
So now let's take a closer look at the results, starting by putting them in order of the high
dba that the decibel meter recorded. So the loudest was the Lectrofan Evo with 77 dBA.
Then the Echo Dot third generation was 74.2. The Sony Bluetooth speaker, the SRS-XB12 with
73.6 - and that was when it was hooked up to the next one, which was the Samsung Galaxy S8 with the
white noise generator app. And that came out on its own as 70.9. The Dreamegg D11 was 70.2. The
Lectrofan Micro 2 was 69.3. The Snooz was 66.4. The Dohm Uno was 55. And finally, the ambient
room noise level was 43.8. It's worth pointing out that the decibel scale is logarithmic, which means
that there's a considerable difference in sound intensity between even the top two of 77 and 74.2,
and an enormous difference between the loudest at 77 and the quietest at 55.
When it came to blocking out the external noise through the window - the air conditioning unit
hum and the traffic in the distance - they all did a good job apart from one,
unfortunately. There it is on its own - the Dohm Uno was the only one which wasn't loud enough,
wasn't filling enough in the room to block out the external noise. So yeah, that one's
not going to be my top one to recommend for sound masking based on this test anyway. When it came to
blocking out the Rhythm Is A Dancer remix that I had on my tv on repeat next door, the results
were more mixed and they fell into three groups I found. The Dohm Uno, the Snooz, and the phone
really didn't do a very good job of blocking it at all and I could hear everything from the bass to
the lyrics. These four in the middle - the Echo Dot, the Lectrofan Evo, the Lectrofan Micro 2,
and the Dreamegg D11 - they did a pretty good job of blocking out a lot of the sound, but the bass
still got through. They just didn't really take the edge off the bass at all. The Sony, on its
own, was the only one that blocked out the music 100% - even the bass - which really surprised me.
However, perhaps I shouldn't be quite so surprised because it is a Sony speaker after all. The thing
is though, to actually block out the noise successfully and block out the bass, I had
to have the Sony speaker on its maximum volume and it sounded really loud. So it's not something that
I would do to help me sleep, not something that I would do during the day for relaxation either,
and I wouldn't recommend it. I don't think having white noise that loudly for extended periods of
time is good for your ears or good for your sanity either if I'm honest! So now that I've looked at
the results, I'm going to make a few conclusions before I finish this video - my own conclusions.
Firstly, I think if you're looking for a white noise machine and you're on the fence,
you're not sure whether you really need one - if sound quality, speaker quality,
and volume are the things that you're most interested in then no you don't really need to buy
a machine. If you've got an app on your phone and a decent Bluetooth speaker or any other speaker
in the house that you can play through, just stick with those and save yourself some money.
Secondly, if you do want to listen to white noise and you need to block out external noise,
if it's quite loud then I don't think you're going to be particularly successful with one
that has an internal fan. But if you do want one just for relaxation and you don't need to block
out loud noise, then one with an internal fan is quite a relaxing thing to listen to.
Thirdly, even though I think a smartphone in this test especially has been shown to be quite loud,
it doesn't fill the room with the same level of rich sound.
It's not so filling in the room I found - it's more directional.
Even though the volume looked quite loud in my test, I wouldn't recommend it if you're looking
for an overall sound experience. I'd definitely stick with a machine or a Bluetooth speaker.
And then finally, I think white noise - really, it has its limitations and I think it's worth
bearing that in mind. Even though I do reviews of white noise machines and I sometimes recommend it
as a way to help people sleep better if external noises is bothering them, I think it really does
have limitations. I wouldn't recommend listening to white noise night after night. I don't think
it's particularly good for you. I also find that if you can just find a way to block the noise it's
perhaps better. So for me, that means earplugs generally, sometimes headphones. Just listening to
music that you like - perhaps more of an enjoyable experience than blasting white noise night after
night after night! So there you go, I hope that you found this video useful and interesting.
If you did and you'd like to buy any of these devices that I've covered, you can find links
to do so in the description below. And please also subscribe to my YouTube channel to keep
in touch with me and see future reviews. Thanks again, this is Ethan from No Sleepless Nights.