Adaptive Sound Technologies LectroFan High Fidelity White Noise Machine with 20 Unique Non-Looping Fan and White Noise Sounds and Sleep Timer

I almost depend on this. It's no joke to have white noise to focus on while you go to sleep - similar to meditating on a candle.At first, I thought that digital sound would be terrible. That has not turned out to be the case.I also own and use the Marpac. I also give that five stars. I find myself using this LectroFan more frequently (by that, I mean, every single night - for months on end). (I use this more frequently just because it's a bit louder and I like to select the sound.)For some reason the sound does not feel 'digital' or electronic. I can't explain why that is, but it is the case. At the same time, I can tell it's not a real fan.I never use the white noise, only the fan sounds (but I still give this review a title with the words 'white noise', because for all intents and purposes, that's what the unit is doing, even in fan mode).It has some serious advantages.- Only three buttons, and they are intuitive- Small, but solid piece - easy to reach for in the dark- Easy to locate the buttons in the dark- A decent selection of fan noises that are different, from a bass hum to a high pitch, but not *too* many choices - maybe 10 or so- Volume control goes readily through volumes of interest when wanting to sleep- The sound seems to fill a pretty large space, rather than coming from one source- The button that controls the timer just works in 1-hour increments, nothing tricky, easy- One feature of great importance that you might not think of: When the time is up (for me, usually I set it to 5 hours), it becomes silent very gradually. If it became silent suddenly, I would never use it, because the sudden silence would wake you up. But occasionally I am awake when it turns off, and I can tell you that it takes a solid 3 minutes or so to finally dissipate away down to nothing.Like I say, having a white noise machine is no joke - at least not for me. Of course, if we could live out in the woods or a snow-filled tundra, just the sound of the woods or snow and air, or even the silence of a night without human inventions in the way, might be enough. But without that - this is a major help for meditative sleeping.

Very nice unit. Low (3 W) power consumption. It offers 10 colors of noise ranging in small steps from Brown (very little high frequency sound energy) to white (equal energy across the audio spectrum), 10 volume levels, and 10 simulated fan modulation styles (no moving parts). The unit works for me to mask outside noise without imposing itself on me. It works for my wife who says its sound acts as a meditation focus that lets her mind relax and fall asleep.White noise can be very harsh to many people, because there are not many persistent high-frequency noisy sources in nature or civilization, and most of those are grating rather than relaxing. Other colors of sound with less high-frequency content, can be more soothing for people. With this unit you can find the sound color that works best for you - soothing yet able to cover up life's annoying sounds.Ten volume levels is also nice. I found that I set the volume too high at first. Outside noises were covered up, but the unit's own sound was an annoyance. About 5 minutes of adjusting the volume down and laying my head back down, a volume step at a time, it gave me just the level I needed.The sound is lightly modulated as if it is being generated by a fan. There are 10 simulated fan options from the barely noticeable modulation of a ceiling fan to more industrial-style fan simulations. I found that as with the volume, I needed to adjust the choice of fan style. Similar styles are next to one another, so it's pretty easy to home in on the one that best suits you.This wide variety is a very nice feature. You might think that with 10x10x10 = 1000 options, you'll spend hours finding something suitable, but 5 minutes before lights-out and a maybe 5 more minutes making fine adjustments is about all you'll need (with, perhaps, one middle-of-the-first-night final re-adjustment). You'll be close to what works for you before you even turn out the lights, and then the small adjustments will get you to what's best for you.The unit remembers the chosen sound color, volume, and fan modulation so on future nights you can simply turn it on and not have to fuss.The unit can be turned on to run until it's turned off, or it can be set to turn itself off after a selectable number of hours have passed. I just let it run all night.I used to put in earplugs each night, and they worked to reduce outside noise to an acceptable level, but after 6 hours I'd wake up with my ears itching. I was getting concerned that using earplugs every night was not doing my ear hygiene any good, so I went looking for a noise generator. This one was recommended in a technical article I read and it has worked out perfectly.