How I figured out why an appliance sounds like it's talking

I had a similar odd noise issue with a specific older Black+Decker combo unit last year. The faint talking coming from the steamer tip made me think it was just electrical interference, and I followed the suggestion and moved the iron to the utility room, far away from the main Wi-Fi router and kitchen electronics. The actual broadcast sounds completley vanished once it was moved. However, even though the radio noise stopped, the unit still felt excessively hot, and I noticed a slight resonant hum coming from the internal heating coil when it wasn't actively running. Since the moving it only addressed the audio part, I felt that the underlying wiring or thermal component was likely compromised regardless of the interference. I decided to buy a simple, new, all-electric unit instead of trying to service the internal connections myself. It felt safer to just replace the whole thing than to risk getting deep into the guts of the thing just to fix a worn contact. The appliance itself was a used unit, so I’m glad I didn't rely on it any longer.

Same thing happened to my grandma's old percolator decades ago, it'd pick up the local AM station late at night and we all thought the house was haunted. She kept using it for years though, so take that as a cautionary tale, not advice. I don't mess with anything that hums when it's not on, that's usually the giveaway that something inside is on its way out.

The mechanism is actually the same one behind the old crystal sets, which is why this keeps coming up. A corroded or loose joint on a heating element can rectify the AM signal, the element itself acts as the antenna and the poor contact does the job of the detector, so the appliance literally becomes a one-transistor-less radio. I got this from a wall dimmer once, talked all evening until I replaced it. One thing I'd add is to check the outlet too, since a half-backwired receptacle can produce the same arcing and it costs nothing to look before you write off the iron.

The one thing that saved me on a similar mystery was a cheap outlet tester from the hardware store. My old toaster oven used to crackle and buzz, and I blamed the appliance until the tester showed the receptacle itself had a loose neutral. Rewired the outlet and the noise was gone, appliance was fine. So before tossing the iron, maybe try it in a diffrent outlet entirely, or have a friend with a tester check the one you normally use. Cheap way to know wether it's the wall or the machine talking.