Ecotones Sound + Sleep Machine,

The good news is I live in a rent-stabilized apartment in NYC. The bad news is I live in a rent-stabilized apartment in NYC where I am besieged by every kind of noise.The worst offenders: a large clanking steam radiator; upstairs neighbors clomping around in hard-sole shoes on a bare hard-wood floor; construction noises next door and down the block; plus the usual assortment of horn honks and blaring sirens from vehicles on the avenue two doors over.For some years, I have used the Marsonic travel white noise machine (around $80), which was the best unit I auditioned at Hammacher-Schlemmer at the time. It offered excellent sound and admirable volume, especially for such a small device, plus two sounds, waterfall and ocean, with a tone control.But I was interested when I heard about Adaptive Sound's first machine, the one that sells for $300. Unfortunately that price busts my budget, so I was delighted to discover that their new machine, the Duet…

For a long time, my husband wanted to get a white noise machine to help block out the street noise from our busy city block as well as mask my, um, penchant for loud snoring (he doesn't hear his own; what can I say?). He finally got around to researching machines and settled on this one, even though it was substantially more expensive than its competition here on Amazon. Well, it works, and it works well, for its intended purpose. We tried the various sounds (rainfall; nature; etc.) but found that the actual "white noise" setting works best. We like the fact that you can set the volume control and the pitch to achieve a soothing sound. The response feature — where a microphone picks up ambient sounds like coughing and snoring and adjusts the volume accordingly — actually works nicely. Good product that has contributed to better sleeping conditions for both of us.

I bought an Ecotones Duet to help me sleep. I had read about Ecotones in a New York Times article, but only recently found that it was carried on Amazon.I occasionally have trouble getting to sleep and sleeping pills leave me groggy in the morning. My Duet does the trick. For the last several nights, I have fallen asleep in 20 minutes or so. Of course since there are no drugs, there are no more groggy mornings.The sounds that help me sleep the most are the evening meadow and the babbling brook. The ocean is also nice, but I haven't tried it yet at night. The noise masking feature works well although that is not why I bought the unit.Last year I tried the Brookstone machine, but the sounds quality was so horrible that I turned it off after 10 minutes or so. Duet creates an absolutely believable naturescape. I like it.