Most tinnitus videos say "nature sounds help". Few say which ones, or why. We record our own water sounds in the mountains near Almaty, so we can measure them before publishing. This page shows what we look for and the numbers behind each track.
What makes a sound good for masking
A masking sound should be steady. If its loudness keeps jumping, your attention follows the jumps, and the ringing comes back into focus between them. So we test three things: how much the loudness varies, how many sudden peaks the recording has, and whether its tone drifts over time.
Research points the same way. In a pilot study of 21 people published by the American Academy of Audiology, water and nature sounds were judged more effective at reducing tinnitus annoyance than the other sounds tested. A clinic study in Malaysia found white noise suppressed tinnitus slightly more, but most patients preferred ocean waves for regular use. Comfort matters, because a sound only helps if you keep playing it.
Our measurements
| Recording | Loudness variation | Spread (P95–P5) | Sudden peaks >6 dB | Tone centre | Verdict |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mountain Brook | 0.31 dB | 1.04 dB | none | 1115–1136 Hz | Used · 8 h track |
| Mountain River | 0.62 dB | 2.04 dB | 0.031% | 1142–1182 Hz | Used · 8 h track |
| City dawn birdsong | 3.73 dB | 12.83 dB | 42 per min | 2217–4238 Hz | Rejected |
Loudness variation is the standard deviation of the level in 400 ms windows. Lower numbers mean a steadier sound.
The birdsong result surprises people who expect "nature" to mean "relaxing". Birds sing in short, bright bursts, about 42 of them per minute in that recording, and their pitch swings across two thousand hertz. That is the opposite of masking (full birdsong analysis). The brook stays within a third of a decibel and never spikes.
One more lesson: you cannot judge a stream by how it looks. The Mountain Brook spot looked like a splashing cascade in photos, and we almost skipped it. The rocks break the water into fine foam, which sounds like an even hiss with no impacts at all.
How we prepare each track
- Trim the spoken slate at the start and end of the recording.
- Balance the left and right channels. The brook was 3.5 dB louder on the left, which you would feel in headphones over a night.
- Soften the top end with a gentle −5 dB shelf above 6 kHz, so the hiss stays smooth.
- No compressor. Compression lifts the background noise of a natural recording.
- Normalize to −3 dBFS and loop to 8 hours with a checked, silent seam.
Listen
Sources
- Henry J.A., Rheinsburg B., Zaugg T. Comparison of custom sounds for achieving tinnitus relief. Journal of the American Academy of Audiology, 2004; 15(8): 585–598.
- Wan Mohamad W.N. et al. Tinnitus suppressive effect and stimulus preference for therapy. International Journal of Allied Health Sciences, 2018; 3(1): 579.