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On Wednesday 04 September 2002 23:55, John Winckle wrote:

I was in Dick Smith today and there was a kit for generating  'white  and pink' noise. said to be useful for tinnitus.  (That gives them a potential market of a million sufferers.)

Q1 what is 'white and pink' noise.
Q2  has anyone had experience with these sounds and their tinnitus?
 

Zero Sum replied:

White noise is a sound where all frequencies are equally repesented. If a white noise generator is on in a room you will soon come to ignore it but all other sounds will seem a little muted.  This is how it is supposed to help tinnitus.  Bit brummy, seems to me.

Pink noise is what you first make when you try to make white noise or have cruddy equiptment. Pink noise is white the white noise is not quite white because some frequencies are more strongly represented.

The parallel is that white light contains all colours (frequencies) of visible light and white noise includes all tones (frequencies) in the audible range.

Soundwarp would probably give you a better explanation.

White noise has the energy the same over the entire bandwidth whereas pink noise is modified white noise so that the energy reduces by (from memory) 3dB per octave from 20Hz to 20KHz.  Again from memory, pink noise more closely approximates the ears natural response against frequency.

Many years ago I used to install pink noise generators in the ceilings of some offices so that people could not understand what was being said in adjacent offices by masking the voice frequencies.  It worked very effectively.

I used to use a pink and white noise generator to install and test sound reinforcement equipment to achieve as flat a response as possible in a given area.

Excellent to reduce feedback too. Insert white noise at a relatively low volume and see with a spectrum analyser what the peaks were - then pull them down with a 1/3rd octave graphic equalizer. This didn't give a flat  response but we could lift the total energy being pumped into the room by up to 20dB.
 

Soundwarp replied:

Hi Chris, Zero John and all,

Sorry, not had the time to keep up. I have no idea how "Noise" (white, pink, or other) may help or hinder problems with Tinnitus. Masking (louder sounds making quieter sounds less noticeable - MP3, Minidisc,
noise-cancelling systems) may "work", but I have doubts...

Yes, White noise contains equal energy at all frequencies - Pink Noise is equalised / filtered at 3dB per Octave (the idea being equal energy per octave) to more closely model "Human" hearing.

White noise is used mostly for the Lab Tests of audio-electronics - i.e. checking the frequency response of an amplifier etc.

Pink noise is used for acoustic evaluation - Tuning Room acoustics, Speaker installations...

I have experienced many short-term "bursts" of Tinnitus, after exposure to excessive volumes / bad acoustics. Luckily, so far, not permanent, I hope.

However... Meredith's uncle has been flying light aircraft for many years (radio headset, motor noise) and has become quite deaf.

An Audio Engineer (I cannot name) is almost completely deaf to 1kHz tone after too many years of aligning tape machines / recording consoles etc.

Far from being able to offer any solutions, all I can say is please protect your hearing, as you would your eyesight or sense of smell and taste.

The idea is that any sound above the level of the "head noise" as I've read it being called, can bring relief as it masks the sound.

My doctor said to put a ticking clock next to my bed.
 

Jim Edwards responded:

Many years ago I visited a specialist to see if anything could be done about  my tinnitus.  He did various tests for volume, range of frequencies, etc., then told me, yes, I had tinnitus.  He said it was caused by damage to the little hair-like thingies in the inner ear, probably caused either by listening to loud rock bands or by using a jack-hammer without ear protection, or both.  It was permanent and incurable.

Trying to mask it with white or pink noise would seem to be both futile and boring.  My solution is to wear a pocket radio plugged into my ears and tuned to Radio National.  It doesn't get rid of the tinnitus but at least I have something more interesting to hold my attention.