Gray Noise

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What Does Gray Noise Mean?

Gray noise is a specific kind of spectral sound that is designed for the psychoacoustics of the human ear. It differs in frequency allocation from other kinds of noise that work differently across different frequencies. Some new technologies may use gray noise to achieve a certain type of distributed sound efficiently, in other words, at lower decibel levels.

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Techopedia Explains Gray Noise

Experts describe gray noise as a noise that has more power at the top of the frequency spectrum and at the bottom of the spectrum, with less density in the middle of the spectrum. Scientists point out that this complements the acoustics of the human ear, so that to a listener, it sounds like every frequency is equally loud. Others have described gray noise as sounding like a three-dimensional kind of sound, or a sound that is not flat, but has some depth to it. Some contrast gray noise to other kinds of noise, like white noise, which is widely used for sleeping aids.

Gray noise has also been useful in testing a person’s hearing.

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Margaret Rouse
Technology Expert
Margaret Rouse
Technology Expert

Margaret is an award-winning technical writer and teacher known for her ability to explain complex technical subjects to a non-technical business audience. Over the past twenty years, her IT definitions have been published by Que in an encyclopedia of technology terms and cited in articles by the New York Times, Time Magazine, USA Today, ZDNet, PC Magazine, and Discovery Magazine. She joined Techopedia in 2011. Margaret's idea of a fun day is helping IT and business professionals learn to speak each other’s highly specialized languages.