The 10 Best Sound Machines

I've unsuccessfully tried a few dozen different guided meditations in my life, and one thing always holds true in their failure: the moment I hear something said that's just a little too screwy, that crosses my personal threshold of the normal meditative process and verges on the language of the cult or the scam, or the moment some chatter from another room or an irritating ambient noise sets in, I immediately turn off. The meditation can go no further.

That's a shame because meditation can reduce stress levels, increase concentration and mental acuity, improve sleep, posture, and mood, and just make you feel good. I'm a busybody and a busy mind, and I need all the help I can get. I'm sure you are, too.

A sound machine works a little differently than a guided meditation. Some of the devices simply produce white noises designed to mask the ambient sounds that could otherwise interrupt your concentration. Others provide familiar and soothing sounds like thunderstorms and crashing waves, which are usually used in guiding the listener off to sleep.

At least one of these devices is the result of scientifically tested frequencies and interactive brain scans that show which sounds, pulses, timings, and even light experiences the brain utilizes naturally, and which ones onto which it'll latch itself.

Any and all of the sound machines on our list promote relaxation, and some of them will even intervene when you're feeling a little too relaxed and they'll help you focus and function at work. After our eyes, the human ear is the most sensitive of our major sense organs, so it follows that a good sound machine can set the stage for superior performance or superior peace.

Not all of the sound machines on our list are created for the same purpose, and evaluating them against one another without considering this would be to do them a disservice. Knowing the environment in which you intend to use your new sound machine will speak volumes as to which type you need, and it will help you narrow down our top nine list to just a few perfect options.

Perhaps you feel that, more often than not, the walls around you can seem pretty thin. Whether that means you can hear every argument and every adult reconciliation between your neighbors or you're simply afraid they might hear your every sensitive conversation, a thin wall is trouble. Maybe you're a doctor or a lawyer with a delicate practice and a pride for the faith your clients place in your confidence. Whatever the need, a simple, ambient sound machine, like several of the options on our list, will create a thick wall of white noise that is practically impenetrable, and whose thickness and duration you can control.

Or, you may just have trouble getting off to sleep. Most of the sound machines on our list offer certain kinds of sleep assistance, usually delivered in the form of a recognizable and peaceful ambient sound like a rain forest at night or a distant ocean. Among these you should look for helpful functions like an automatic shutoff so your sound machine can stop playing after its guided you to sleep.

Sound and light have been used in religious practices for millennia, both as a tool for guided meditation and as a means to elevate consciousness and increase overall health. Ancient Tibetan Buddhists have long used bells in their rituals. Often a single tolling bell would be joined by another, and then another, slowly swelling into a cacophony of chimes which would then fade out just as slowly as they came in, one or two bells at a time. By the end of the experience, only the original bell would remain tolling, and then nothing.

The sonic experience is a metaphorical representation of the universe's life cycle in Hindu mythology, a precursor to Buddhism. You'll hear similar musical patterns in traditional Indian music, where phrases start out simply and attain amazing complexity before returning to a drone, or a source energy from which everything that is had sprung.

While not all of the sound machines on our list operate based on the same religious ideas, their sonic methods are all descendants of these practices. They all provide a kind of shift in consciousness–either subtle and distracting from white noise, relaxing and calming as with the sounds of nature, or stimulating and exacting as with the mind machine on our list. All are grounded in the rhythms of our perception, and each provides an augmentation to our present experience of the universe.