Binaural beats for sleep
A slow delta beat under a brown-noise bed, with a timer long enough to cover a whole night and a fade-out gentle enough that it will not wake you.
For sleep, most people use a beat in the delta band (0.5–4 Hz) over a low carrier, often with a noise bed to cover traffic or a snoring partner. The setting that matters more than the frequency is the volume: quiet enough that you stop noticing it within a minute or two.
Why this player is set up the way it is
- 100 Hz carrier. Low carriers are less fatiguing over hours than the 200–400 Hz range that suits daytime sessions, and they sit under a noise bed instead of on top of it.
- Brown noise underneath. Brown noise has most of its energy at the bottom of the spectrum, which is the part that masks room rumble and a partner moving around. Hear it on its own.
- Eight-hour timer with an eight-second fade. A hard stop at 3 a.m. is its own kind of alarm. The fade is slow enough to sleep through.
- No autoplay of anything else. When the timer ends the tab goes quiet — there is no next track, no recommendation, no notification.
Can I sleep with headphones in?
Only if you can do it comfortably. Sleeping on a hard earbud is a good way to wake up with a sore ear, and side-sleepers usually cannot. Two ways around it: use flat sleep headphones or a headband, or switch the player to a noise-only bed, which does not need stereo separation and works fine from a speaker on the nightstand.
How loud should it be?
Quieter than a conversation, and quieter than you think. A useful test: set the level so that you can still hear a door close somewhere in the house. Sound played all night at high volume is a hearing risk rather than a sleep aid, and the point of the noise bed is to smooth over sudden changes, not to drown the room.
If you use sound to fall asleep every single night and cannot sleep without it, that is worth mentioning to a doctor rather than solving with a longer timer. Persistent insomnia has treatments that work; a tone generator is not one of them. See our safety notes.
What the research supports
Studies on binaural beats and sleep are small, short and inconsistent — some report modest improvements in how rested people feel, others find nothing beyond what any steady background sound provides. Masking is the better-supported half of what you are hearing here: a constant sound covers the irregular ones that fragment sleep. We keep the honest version on the evidence page.
Other night-time players
Questions
What frequency is best for sleep?
There is no single best number. Delta beats between 1 and 4 Hz are the usual starting point; 2 Hz over a 100 Hz carrier is the default here. Try one setting for several nights before changing it, otherwise you are measuring novelty rather than sleep.
Should the beat run all night or only while I fall asleep?
Either works. A 30- to 45-minute timer covers sleep onset and leaves the room quiet for the rest of the night; an all-night noise bed suits noisy streets and shift work.
Is it safe to leave audio playing for eight hours?
At a low volume, for most people, yes. Keep it well below conversation level, and do not use it at all if you have a seizure disorder without asking a doctor first.
Does it work without headphones?
The binaural part does not — it needs one ear per tone. The noise bed does, which is why this page includes a speaker-friendly noise-only player above.
Running this on a phone? The Brainwave Generator app keeps playing with the screen off, works without a connection, and carries the same engine. Free on iOS and Android.