Refrigerator noise

An apartment dweller most of my life, I gave up and unplugged the 'fridge during serious listening.

Freeze a gallon water jug and place in main compartment
to keep things cool.

Yes, occasionally I forget to re-plug (oops!).

There is no way other than a sound blanket to lower the noise coming from a refrigerator. The compressor is a pump and makes noise as it runs and the hotter the air around it gets the louder it will get. Make sure it is on level ground also. This is what I do for a living trust me you cannot stop the noise no matter what you do short of remoting the compressor and condencer, very costly. Also with the new freons they seem to be getting louder especially when they startup.

yes you can simply unplug the fridge. Or you can buy a RF remote power outlet and hit a button to shut down the ice box, and hit it again to turn it back on.

Avoiding the sliding in & out of the ice box.

If replacing, the box entirely, check to see if the condenser is attached to the back of the fridge or if everything is contained underneath it behind the paper shroud.

Generally speaking, those with non exposed condensers are quieter... but not always.

The bigger the box the louder, usually. Amana's, Sub Zeero's used to be very quiet and long lasting. I've had a few others like GE, Fridgedare, & Kelvinator.

They all make noise. The larger ones make more... try the RF outletn approach... and a new box. Pocket doors might be an option to close off the kitchen from the listening area... That's what I did in the end, though it was not aimed at lessening ice box noise.

Tvad, I'm not completely "unsatisfied". It is quiet and it does do the most important job of all i.e., maintaining proper temperture, quite well. And yes, the design, (french doors w/o water dispenser) size and color worked in to our plans as well. The lay out, silly ice maker design, and perhaps more of an issue, the quality of plastic is dissapointing though. After all, 4 different broken broken pieces(including the same all important door latch, twice, for a total of 5 pieces), in very light use, in less than 2 years, is disturbing.