I tried a nature sound machines. I had an alarm clock with the sounds and a separate "sounds of nature" machine. The problem I found with them is that the sounds cycle which I find very annoying. These days, I just stick with static on my stereo. It is an even, non-punctuated/ing sound that drowns out any noises in the rest of the house or outside.

My hubby has a nature sound machine. He likes the waves. I more or less tolerate it. But if I wake up in the middle of the night and can't get back to sleep I go turn it off. He got it a few years ago at the Sharper Image. I agree with MonkeyButter that the cycling of the sounds is annoying. When we visit my parents, my hub tunes the radio to a spot between stations and listens to the static. This, I really don't like. I really think a loud fan is best. If it makes him cold, that could be a good thing because I think feeling a little chilly and snuggling down under the blankets helps me get to sleep.

I've had my eye on this white noise maker since I found out we would have a baby in the house. It seems to have great reviews. Since Baby Henry is due Wednesday maybe we better stop looking at it and start buying it.

White noise makers, endorsed by the BNP.

Oh, bite me.

Have you looked around for White Noise internet radio stations or noise generation programs? Or MP3s that you can put on loop? I can't search at work (our proxy seems to hate most of the internets) but I'm sure there's something like that out there.

I got a free sound machine iPod App (ooo, looks like now it costs 99 cents)- it's called "Easy Relax". It has a number of nature-y sounds.

Have you considered some Brian Eno/Harold Budd style ambient music to fall asleep to? I have a stack of CDs in the bedroom and listen to at least one of them every night while drifting off.

I tend to find that a rhythmic, regular sound will often cause me to focus more on my (pretty freaking loud) tinnitus, though I do use simply noise (mentioned on blue or green at some point) at work, because it doesn't seize my attention the way music does. Looks like it has downloads, though I've never tried them. But my main death-to-anxiety-and-insomnia ritual involves the Rachmaninoff Vespers at a low volume and deep breathing. I can only remember a one or two times when I was still awake enough to hit repeat. I love it so much that I made a Pandora channel based on it, entitled Russians Chanting in a Soothing Manner.

I tried the "sound of nature" stuff too, several years back, and they drove me slightly nuts. Since they're just a short segment of sounds on an endless loop, I was able to detect the spot where the loop was edited... so I found I'd become more awake as I started listening (and vaguely tensing) for that moment.

I also found that the nature sounds didn't really have enough "depth" to them to properly drown out more than just low-level annoyances (e.g., regular traffic sounds) -- for me, it ultimately took a proper white noise machine set at just the right pitch/volume to get some proper noise-cancelling effects going on. This is the machine I use.

LT has an alarm clock that has a nature-sounds mode which includes "singing morning birds" "babbling brook", "nighttime forest," and "ocean waves" sounds on it, plus I think a few more, rain maybe. I confess I really love it. They're all nice. I especially like the birds, but they are not good for waking you up. It just makes you enjoy sleeping more.
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All the sounds sound real enough to lull me.