What’s the most annoying sound you can think of? For Susan Rogers, it’s her cell phone.
Its jingle harks back to her days as a mixer and sound engineer for the famed musician Prince, when middle-of-the-night calls on her landline jolted her from sleep and beckoned her into the studio. Those sleepless recording sessions may have fostered mega-hits such as “Purple Rain” and “Around the World in a Day,” but they did little to shake her distaste for ringtones. “Learned aversions,” Rogers says. “I hate the sound of a phone ringing!”