Brown Noise Vs. White Noise: Similarities, Differences, & Which One To Tune Into

If you instantly feel calmer when you hear waves crashing or a soft rain hitting your window, you’ve already experienced the benefits of sound therapy. But what you may not know is that different sounds emit different frequencies, and that can have an impact on your mood, sleep, and focus. 

Before diving directly into brown noise vs. white noise, let’s back up a second and talk about noise colors in general.

Noise colors are different audible sounds that contain varying frequencies. In other words, the different sound colors vibrate at different frequencies, and they’re named after the colors of light they most closely represent. 

For example, white noise emits every audible frequency, just like white light includes all visible colors of light.

In addition to being the most researched, white noise is also the most well-known noise “color,” according to Schumacher.

“It has equal intensity across all the frequencies and is similar to sunlight, which contains all the colors of the visible spectrum and appears white,” she says.

White noise tends to have somewhat of a hissing sound (think TV static, a fan, or a vacuum). And some people can find white noise jarring because high pitches or heavier bass can be startling.

That being said, white noise is the most extensively studied sound color, and there are a handful of smaller studies that show it can be an effective sleep aid1 for two reasons: It helps block out external stimuli (like busy traffic or a snoring partner), and it can give the brain something to focus on to steer it away from “monkey mind,” or swirling, disruptive thoughts.

“Brown, pink, or any other ‘colored’ noise is white noise that has been filtered, just as sunlight can be filtered by a prism to reveal one or more of the colors it contains," Schumacher says. "A certain area of sound frequencies in colored noise is emphasized to be more intense than the rest, or there may be frequencies that are decreased."

More specifically, brown noise has a deeper intensity than white noise and sounds like a low roar. This would be like a rushing river or a strong wind. Without getting too in-depth into acoustics, this means you will still hear much of the low-frequency “hum” you’d hear with white noise, with less of a higher-pitched “hiss.”

The question of whether one is better than the other is hard to answer because there’s just simply not enough research behind brown noise (or even white noise1, really) to make definitive statements. While experts tend to think brown noise sounds more pleasing to the human ear, a lot of this also comes down to personal preference and how you perceive specific sounds.

Beyond white and brown noise, there are other noise colors too. Each color refers to a differently shaped filter, which creates a different audio quality to the noise, even though it still sounds like constant static, as white noise would, says Schumacher. 

This is where things can get a little more complicated. While different noise colors are often said to help with varying goals, like better sleep, improved focus, and general relaxation, there’s not a lot of research to back up any purported health benefits beyond white and pink noise, according to Schumacher.

“Part of the issue likely lies in that there is a lot of variation in the studies—how they are designed, the people who participate as subjects, and the ways they define or measure ‘better sleep.’ Still, it’s important to be aware that there isn't strong evidence for the use of sound therapy in this way,” she says.

To add to that, there are so many individual human factors that lead to different perceptions of the same sound. For example, one person might prefer the whirring and hissing of white noise, while another might find the lower roar of brown noise more appealing. Hearing loss can also affect noise perception and which sound will work better for someone. 

“This is one of the reasons the field of psychoacoustics came into being—because there are so many individual human factors that lead to different perceptions of the same sound,” says Schumacher.

There is also another, perhaps lesser-known, use of sound therapy in health, and that’s for treating tinnitus, according to Schumacher. Tinnitus is a self-perceived ringing, buzzing or humming sound in one or both ears. It can be soft, loud, constant or intermittent; barely noticeable or very annoying, even debilitating. 

“In severe cases of tinnitus, noises like white and pink noise can be part of a tinnitus retraining therapy program. Along with education on tinnitus and how to cope with it, noise can be used to mask the tinnitus from an acoustic perspective, while also helping reduce the person’s awareness of it psychologically,” she says.

Because there’s not a lot of research to support different noise colors for different applications, most experts think it’s best to just take a general approach. If the thought of figuring out how different colors can help you is giving you analysis paralysis, it’s better to just jump right in rather than worrying about specific frequencies.

According to Schumacher, there’s a plethora of products out there that emit white and colored noise, with apps on smart devices being particularly convenient since they can be played right through headphones. 

“The noise can often be customized to sound just the way you like, either by picking one specific sound type (say, brown noise) or by using an equalizer to adjust the frequencies yourself. It’s really up to you based on your personal preference for the sounds you want to listen to,” she says.  

This app was designed to be a sound therapy tool for people with tinnitus, but it can, and is, used by anyone looking for sound therapy for relaxation, focus, meditation, or sleep, according to Schumacher.

LectroFan is one of the most popular sound machines. It has a total of 22 unique (non-looping) sounds, plus 10 fan sounds, two ocean surf sounds, and 10 noise color variations, including white, brown, and pink noise. It has a sleep timer, so you can set it for one to eight hours.

There’s no Bluetooth capabilities so you can’t hook it up to headphones, but this is generally preferred since listening to sound via headphones all night can negatively affect your hearing.

This sound machine is similar to LectroFan, but it has a few more sound options (30 in total). You can’t adjust the frequencies manually, but there’s a true “white noise” option, plus nature sounds, like rainfall and waterfall, that fall under the brown noise frequency.

It’s possible to damage your hearing if you are exposed to loud sounds, especially over a long period of time, like the entire night while you sleep, according to Schumacher.

“If the noise you're listening to in your headphones is 85 dB(A) or higher, you are putting yourself at risk for noise-induced hearing loss. This is around the same intensity as a vacuum cleaner or blow dryer,” she says.