Refrigerator Hum Masks My Tinnitus Well — How Can I Make This Portable?

When I sit in my kitchen between my fridge and a little wine fridge under the counter, it's really hard for me to hear my tinnitus - the noise is more of a whirrrrr in contrast with a standard fan or white noise machine which is more of a shhhhhh - the latter actually irritates and spikes my ears. I stayed in a hotel with a mini fridge for a month and verified the same masking effect without ear irritation and tinnitus spiking.

I'm not really sure what produces that sound, but I'd really like to have a unit in my room without buying an entire refrigerator (though if I absolutely have to I will). Is there anyone here with enough mechanical savvy to be able to tell me how the whirrrr noise is being produced, and if I could buy the component?

 

It’s the compressor. You can get one separately for repairs.

 

Ah okay, thank you, I will look up whether I can buy one that can plug in by itself.

 

You could try recording the sound and playing it in your room...

There might be something on YouTube that you could use to play.
Does this video...

Two-Cylinder Air Compressor Stereo Sound...

...sound like your compressor? I could tell you the software you can use to download YouTube videos.

 

Thanks - for some reason only the real sound will do it. When coming from my PC it’s still quite easy to pick out my tinnitus. I noticed the same thing with crickets this summer when my tinnitus started. It’s a shame but I’ll need to figure out how to get the real thing.

 

I heard some dude is making a head vibrator that uses super low frequency, so it won't be bothersome like a jackhammer or dildo is on your neck. It was originally made for motion sickness but happy accident it supresses tinnitus too.

 

Go to tmsoft.com. Once you download their app, you can load stock sounds, but they also allow users to create their own custom sounds. Odds are you can find something close to the fridge noise here:

https://whitenoisemarket.com/tag/noise
https://whitenoisemarket.com/search/fridge

 

One of the ceiling lights in my kitchen buzzes like crazy. It's perfect for masking my T so I refuse to fix it lol.

 

MyNoise is another app which allows you to create custom sounds. You can slide the volume up and down at different frequencies to get exactly the sound you need to mask.