Meeting Support Institute

26 January 2007 International visitors to the BadVibes web site (www.sound101.org) — a research project from the University of Salford — listened to sounds such as a dentist's drill, fingernails scraping down a blackboard and aircraft flying past, before rating them in terms of their unpleasantness. Although fingernails scraping down a blackboard is said to be the worst sound by many people, the actual recording of this sound only came 16th out of 34 sounds auditioned. Microphone feedback came a close second in the 'horribleness ranking', with many babies crying coming joint third with a horrible scrapping sound.