There are two different jobs here, and most advice blurs them. Masking makes a noise harder to notice by raising everything else around it. Blocking makes the noise physically quieter before it reaches you. They fail in different ways, they suit different noises, and the fastest route to a quiet night is deciding which one your problem needs before you touch a slider.
Start by describing the noise properly
“My neighbours are loud” is not actionable. These four properties are:
- Pitch. Is it low (footsteps, bass, a lorry) or high (voices, a TV, a baby)? Low noise passes through walls far more easily and needs low-frequency masking to cover.
- Pattern. Constant (a motorway), rhythmic (snoring, music), or sporadic (a door, a dog)? Sporadic noise is the most wakeful and the best candidate for masking.
- Timing. As you fall asleep, or at 3 a.m.? That decides whether a timer is acceptable at all.
- Path. Through a window, a shared wall, a floor, or the gap under the door? You cannot fix a path you have not found.
Spend one night noting those four things. It is more useful than a week of trying different apps.
Masking versus blocking
| Comparison | Masking (sound) | Blocking (physical) |
|---|---|---|
| What it does | Raises the noise floor so intrusions stand out less | Reduces how much sound energy reaches your ear |
| Best against | Sporadic, mid-to-high noise: voices, doors, a distant dog | Constant or low noise: traffic, bass, machinery |
| Worst against | Loud low-frequency noise — you cannot mask a bass line quietly | Nothing, but effective blocking is expensive or uncomfortable |
| Costs | Adds sound to your room all night | Earplugs can be uncomfortable; you may miss an alarm |
| Cost to try | Free, tonight | Anything from a few coins to rehanging a door |
The practical answer for most people is both: block what is cheap to block, mask the remainder. Masking alone is asked to do too much work when the room is leaking sound through an obvious gap.
Snoring
Snoring is the hardest common case, because it is loud, low, rhythmic and close. Low frequencies are poorly masked by hiss, and a rhythm is easy for your brain to track even at low volume — which is why people report hearing the snore “through” their white noise.
What actually helps:
- Mask low with low. A fan-type layer covers the frequency range a snore actually occupies. White noise alone leaves the snore sitting underneath it.
- Break the rhythm with texture. Rain on top of the fan gives your ear something continuous and unpredictable to settle into instead of counting breaths.
- Add distance. Two metres of air and a pillow between you and the source does more than any slider. Not romantic; very effective.
- Earplugs plus a low mix. Plugs take the top off the snore, the mix covers what is left. This combination outperforms either one alone.
Start from Fan 45, Rain 40, White Noise 20 and adjust the fan first — it is the layer doing the work.
One thing worth saying plainly. Loud habitual snoring, especially with pauses in breathing, gasping, or daytime exhaustion, can be a sign of sleep apnoea, which is a medical condition and treatable. Masking the sound protects your sleep and does nothing for theirs. If that description fits, it is worth a conversation with a doctor rather than a louder mix.
Upstairs footsteps, music and voices
These split cleanly by pitch, and so should your mix.
- Voices and television through a wall. Speech is the one thing your brain refuses to ignore, because it carries meaning. You need energy in the speech range to cover it: white noise or steady rain, not a low rumble. Try White Noise 40 with Rain 35.
- Footsteps and furniture above. Impact noise transmitted through the structure — sporadic, low, and genuinely hard to mask. Lean on Fan 50 with Ocean Waves 30 and accept that a mix softens the edges rather than removing them.
- Music with a bass line. The worst case for masking. Bass travels through structure, and covering it would take a volume you should not sleep at. This is a conversation, a schedule, or a building-management problem before it is an audio one.
Traffic and street noise
Traffic is mostly constant, mostly low, and arrives through the window. That makes it the best case for cheap blocking: close the window if the temperature allows, use heavy curtains, and seal an obviously draughty frame — anything that leaks air leaks sound. Then mask the residue with something low and continuous, such as Fan 40, Ocean Waves 35, Rain 25.
The exception is a sporadic street: sirens, car doors, a night bus. That is a masking problem rather than a blocking one, because the issue is the contrast, not the level. See which noise colour matches which noise.
Four mistakes that make masking fail
- Turning it up until the noise disappears. If you are chasing a bass line upward, stop — you are now sleeping in a loud room for no benefit. Masking blunts contrast; it does not delete sound.
- Using one layer. A single sound covers one part of the spectrum. Most real noise problems need a low layer and a broad one.
- Choosing an eventful sound. Thunder, birdsong, crackling fire and melody all contain things worth listening to. Under a night, you want the opposite.
- Setting a timer for a 3 a.m. problem. If the noise arrives after the timer ends, the timer is the bug.
Worth remembering that noise is only one reason sleep goes wrong — the limits of what sound can fix are real, and persistent insomnia has better-evidenced treatments than any audio mix.