Same here! That’s the only reason I went and bought a ringtone: the opening bars of AC/DC’s “Back in Black” are much less annoying than any of those pre-programmed options. But then, I hardly ever actually hear my ringtone – I don’t get many phone calls, and most of the ones I do get come when the phone is on vibrate (at work, school, poker, etc.).
I find vibrate to be not only unannoying but rather…pleasant :D.
That said, I have a most obnoxious ringtone: don’t click this if you’re at work with the speakers on. Turn the volume to about 1 if you are in a quiet household.
I heard it and knew I had to have it!
My brother has a Nokia 3120 and it came with the best ringtone. It’s of a croaking frog. I know that a croaking frog sounds odd, but it’s kind of a quiet late night croak croak…croak croak… that you would hear if you lived near water.
It’s quite soothing, actually.
For the last year and a half or so, I’ve had Sabbath’s “Paranoid” as my ringtone. It gets my attention and sounds cool, IMO.
I’m not a fan of any of the ringtones with the so-called “real song” (i.e. a lo-fi mp3 with vocals and all). They sound horrid and are too short, so they repeat a few times for every call if someone roommate doesn’t answer it, which gets quite irritating.
Most new phones will allow you to use .wav files or ??? so you can record your own ringtone. Get your kid, or nephew/niece or ??? to say “Ring! Ring! Rinnnnnng!” It is cute as hell and people around you will start smiling.
I use some classical music - Bach or some other dead composer. It works and doesn’t annoy me.
-Tcat
I use Royksopp’s “Eple”. Usually people ask me what that song is, who is it by, and where can they get it. So far no complaints, and I’m not tired of it yet.
My phone plays the theme from the Benny Hill Show.
Everyone who has ever met me agrees that not only is this ringtone absolutely fitting for me, I’ve had complete strangers commenting on what a cool ringtone my phone has. 
It’s also unusual enough so that I don’t find half a dozen people reaching for their phone when anyone calls me. 
I don’t consider my ringtone annoying. My phone only plays polyphonic ringtones, not mp3. It plays the intro to “Takin’ Care of Business” by B.T.O. and for text messages, it plays the bridge part of Edgar Winters’s “Frankenstein.” Very cool.
Mine rings like a phone. That’s it. It’s not hugely irritating but hardly anyone rings me so I don’t get bothered by it. What’s most annoying are the twunts who have to sit at the back of the bus playing MP3s through the phone during their bus journey. It’s invariably the same racial group playing whiny-git music based on not being able to keep a job, losing yer woman and apparently having clothes several sizes too large for you that require the designer’s name to be embroidered all over them in case you forget who came up with the idea that wearing the crotch of your jeans round your knees was fashion. Bah! Rant over…for now…
The best ringtone I’ve ever heard is Tony Soprano’s ringtone. It sounds almost exactly the same as the Codec alert in the Metal Gear Solid games - very simple, direct, and inoffensive.
I want to know where to get this ring tone. Does anyone know?
Dr Who theme here -
<starts off quiet >
dum-dadum dum-dadum dum-dadum
<getting louder>
da-da-daa da-da-dum da-da-da da de-de dum
The only trouble I have is resisting the temptation to keep listening for the
daaa da da dum de-de dum da da-da da da da da-da da da dum da-da dum
Sad, I know. but it works for me. But my phone also vibrates and is on my belt at my hip, so I usually catch the vibrate before the tone starts.
So it isn’t irritating. No sirree. Never-ever.
I need a Tardis wallpaper for my phone. And a demat sound for my texts.
Si
My wife caught me trying to figure out how to replace her ringtone (a stock generic, sound-like-a-bell ringtone) with an MP3 snippet of that song “Milkshake” (holy cow, it’s even got a Wikipedia article about it).
She didn’t cotton to the idea.
I use the Imperial March from Star Wars. Starts out slow and picks up from there. Plus it also alerts those around me that I am a geek.
I have never heard a completely non-annoying ring tone, including at home and at work. My insides clench every time a phone rings, no matter the tone.
This is likely due to negative reinforcement. I spent years on the phones as customer service for a big health insurance carrier. Nobody ever called to say how damn happy they were that they didn’t have to pay the whole $200,000 bill for the quadruple bypass, oh hell no, just to bitch about the stupid $18 they got billed for the pre-op chest x-ray…but I digress.
My new phone has a setting that will emit a single soft beep after it vibrates for a moment. That has been at least less annoying.
My ringtone is the theme from Indiana Jones. It’s all adventursome and intrepid and stuff.
Especially when it goes off when I am in the restroom at Target.
My previous phone played some classical thing; non-irritating, and nobody else’s phone caused me to reach for my own phone.
I got a new RAZR two weeks ago, and it makes like the phones of my childhood, which had actual bells inside.
I have the theme to [Happy Tree Friends](It is a Small World if you Hit-and-Run) as my ring tone. I’m sure it annoys everyone else but it can’t help but put a smile to my face every time I hear it.
Before that, I had the Final Countdown which was fun as well.
And before that was the Tetris theme song which I have to say is probably the least offensive ringtone I’ve ever heard.
I use the ringtone from the movie Crank. Found it on a google search. It’s a traditional phone warped so that people ask if my phone is running out of juice, or jumping for the floor because the aliens are coming.
Mostly I leave it on vibrate though.
I’ve got “Box of Rain” from the Grateful Dead. I’ve had it for 6 months and haven’t tired of it. But people rarely call me and I keep it on vibrate most of the time since it’s in my pockets and my head phones would keep me from hearing it.