[danohu]

"But new research shows that it may not be the sound itself that distracts us…it may be who is making it."

For me, the absolute perfect background noise is people talking in a language I don't understand. If you're in a big city, there are almost certainly cafes with customers mainly from some linguistic minority -- I've found them to be great places to work.

[on roughly the same principle, I sometimes listen to foreign-language pop music while working, so the vocal aspect becomes just another instrument rather than a source of distraction]

[miek]

I do the exact same - listen to foreign music. I can't listen to truly interesting instrumental music because it's distracting, and music with too much emotion grabs too much of my attention. I'll add: I do well with progressive electronic music that doesn't have much going on in it, and some sci-fi movie soundtracks. Additionally, Deuter is great, and his entire catalog is on Spotify.