4′ 33” Ringtone
Based on John Cage’s seminal silent piece 4′ 33”, this ringtone is decidedly noisy. The technical requirement imposed by universally usable ringtones resulted in 32kb encoded audio, necessarily polluted with compression artifacts. The source material is the 2004 orchestral version as performed by the BBC Symphony Orchestra. Despite it’s origins in an exercise in silence, I would not recommend any of these ringtones as a safe alternative for meetings, classrooms, movie theaters or places of worship.