Most Satisfying Sounds in Everyday Life

Ranked by ear, without any scientific method, which would have ruined it.

Entries
10
Category
Stuff
Updated
  1. A microwave with its door just opened, its display reading one second, in a dark kitchen.

    10. Stopping the Microwave at 0:01

    Opening the door just before it beeps, so the sound is silence, especially at night in a sleeping house. It is the quietest victory in the kitchen. It counts for nothing, and you will do it again tomorrow.

  2. A retractable pen lying on an open notebook on a conference table.

    09. A Pen Click

    A ballpoint clicked once means it is time to write. Clicked forty times in a meeting, it is a different sound entirely and no longer on this list. Context is everything.

  3. A glass of fresh ice cubes with cracks running through them as liquid pours in.

    08. Ice Cracking in a Drink

    Pour something room temperature over fresh ice and the cubes crack and pop as they warm unevenly. It means the drink is cold and that you made it yourself. Nothing else is required of you.

  4. A heavy car door swinging shut in a quiet underground garage.

    07. A Good Car Door Closing

    The low, solid thunk of a well-built car door, which carmakers tune on purpose because buyers judge the whole car by it. A cheap one rattles shut. A good one closes like a bank vault, as close to a vault as most people get.

  5. A golf ball dropping into a cup on a putting green, the flagstick leaning out.

    06. A Putt Dropping

    A golf ball falling into the 4.25-inch cup and rattling against the bottom. It means the hole is over. On a public course it is less common than the sound of a ball hitting a tree.

  6. A heavy old beige keyboard on a desk, one key pressed down.

    05. A Clicky Keyboard

    IBM · 1985

    IBM's Model M arrived in 1985 with buckling-spring keys that clack on every stroke and a steel plate that keeps many working four decades later. Unicomp still makes it. Your coworkers have another word for the sound.

  7. Rain streaming off a corrugated tin roof over a lit window at night.

    04. Rain on a Roof

    Steady rain on a roof while you are inside, under a blanket, with nothing due. On a tin roof it is louder and somehow better. Heard from inside a tent it is the same sound and not satisfying at all.

  8. A cold aluminum can with its tab just opened and a mist of fizz rising.

    03. Opening a Soda Can

    The crack and hiss of a stay-on tab, designed by Reynolds engineer Daniel Cudzik and launched in 1975 on Falls City beer, after pull tabs ended up in sand and in drinks. The tab stays put. The sound is the reward.

  9. A sheet of bubble wrap on a table, a few bubbles flattened.

    02. Popping Bubble Wrap

    Alfred Fielding and Marc Chavannes · 1957

    Alfred Fielding and Marc Chavannes were trying to make textured plastic wallpaper in 1957 and made packaging instead. It has its own holiday, the last Monday of January. Nobody has ever stopped after one bubble.

  10. A glass jar on a counter with its metal lid just loosened, a dish towel beside it.

    01. A Jar Lid Popping Open

    The thunk of a vacuum seal giving way after you have run the lid under hot water, banged it on the counter and asked for help. Many lids have a safety button that pops up once the seal breaks. A small win you can hear across the kitchen.

Honorable mentions

  • A window air conditioner in a quiet bedroom at night, its vents still.

    The AC Shutting Off

    The hum stops and the room gets quieter than you knew it could. You hadn't noticed the noise for hours. Now all you notice is the silence.

Dishonorable mentions

  • Two white foam packing blocks pressed against a large cardboard box.

    Styrofoam Squeaking

    Two blocks of packing foam rubbing together as you pull a new TV out of its box. Somewhere in the nerves of your teeth, an alarm goes off. It undoes everything bubble wrap ever did.

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