1. The compressor sounds like a bad fluorescent ballast audible at least 50 feet away.

2. There are random creaks, ticks, and pops audible 80 feet away around a corner and through a hallway into a bedroom (office).

3, Up close, the fan makes an oscillating hum, and the circulating refrigerant sounds like a box of crickets.

This is actually worse than the LG SxS I returned due to the incessant, high-pitched, oscillating overtone it produced whenever its compressor was running. My old Kitchenaid was nowhere near as obnoxious as these two expensive Korean monsters. I took a chance on the Samsung after reading comments from people saying "they can't hear the refrigerator." My conclusion is that they aren't very sophisticated in assessing noise levels; perhaps their ambient noise level is very high (kids, traffic, whatnot), the fridge truly is off when they listen to it, maybe just the fan is running, or they're hearing-impaired. Or maybe they're just sales reps doing some astroturfing, as I heard the same story from salespeople at Lowe's and Best Buy. Reading user reviews of the CR recommended refrigerators, most everyone that actually buys one hates it.

So what's a person to do? Continue playing musical refrigerators in hopes of finding one that isn't a modern piece of noisy, unreliable (but pretty!) junk? Feeling very frustrated, and looking for advice.