from a rival company. it broke a few times and finally kicked the bucket for real. we didnt want to spend the exorbitant fee again and found this well priced one from sharper image. WOO-HOO!!!!! WE LOVE IT!!!!! could NOT be better. first off it is light and we will be able to travel with it. secondly it has a great clock feature our old sound machine did not. so you can go to sleep w one sound and wake w another. we love it. it has an adjustable brightness, also great. the only thing i would say is some of the sounds are just weirdly FAR from relaxing. :) but overall a FANTASTIC BUY. EXCELLENT SERVICE ON BEST TYPE OF PRODUC THE ELECTRONIC BUZZING IN THE BACKGROUND OF THE SOUNDS IS DETERRENT WHEN IT IS VERY QUIET, YOULL NOTICE THIS Meets the Need My husband has an early alarm for his job. I have a later time so usually he retires for the night before I do. I felt that having the TV playing was not giving him a good nights rest so now the TV stays off and the soothing sounds meet both of our needs to go to sleep and to wake up. Depending on our day and mood we have the ability to change the bedtime accompaniment. Also like the fact that we can set the timer to go off after we are asleep. I needed help sleeping next to a snorer I have used this