It is common that when withdrawing money at the ATM, we hear not the operation of the device and the rustle of bills, but a pre -recorded sound. We checked whether this is really so.

Many users of social networks are sure: in fact, ATMs work silently, and the sound of the recounted bills serves exclusively to calm the client. There is another version: the first ATMs have been really noisy, but for many years they have not made real sounds, and audio recording is just a tribute to tradition. Similar opinions are shared by English -speaking users Twitter, and Russian -speaking users "Living Journal", and authors of a specialized magazine "Computerra".

Apparently, the test history became really popular in 2011 after publications On the portal Humans Invest (the author of the "Computerra" just refers to it). The authors of this material told how fake sounds help people: for example, electric vehicles simulate a motor roar so that such cars remain noticeable for pedestrians (even in Europe Accepted The corresponding law), and in stadiums, screams and whistles of fans can simulate, if for some reason the stands remained empty. The Human Invest review ended with the following example: “Most people believe that the sound of an ATM produce rollers that deliver banknotes. In fact, this sound is an absolutely artificial addition to the process. The noise created by the speaker is its integral part, which confirms: money on the way. Without this added noise, an ATM would be almost soundless. ”

Information spread quite quickly on the Internet, and Reddit even appeared a separate branch for discussion. However, people who knew about the work of ATMs firsthand firsthand began to leave their comments. One of them wrote: “I was engaged in servicing ATMs for four years. There is no artificial sound, the car is really loud (and ten times louder with an open door). ” Another said: “As a person who served ATMs of two different brands, I can say that the sounds are real. There [in ATMs] there are many moving mechanisms that recalculate and deliver cash. ”

We also could not find in authoritative sources confirmation that there are ATMs that mimic the sound of the recalculation of bills. The text of Human Invest, which was referred by many other resources, is now unavailable. IN plot The Discovery Channel, shot at the ATM production factory, says that the device is supplied with one speaker, the purpose of which is to “give signals when you click on the buttons”. In another plot, they show how the ATM is arranged from the inside and how exactly it works when issuing cash - they do not show any speakers in the video (unlike a really rather noisy internal mechanism).