Anyone use noise cancelling headphones? Care to share your experiences.
Seems like there are two types active and passive. The passive type sounds rather uncomfortable because it requires pushing them deep into the ear. The reviews I found say that the active systems do better with steady sounds such as airplane engines, bus or train rumble as opposed to people talking (or dogs barking).
I have mild tinutus (ringing in the ears) that comes and goes. I like earbuds better than ones with straps.
I have a set made by Maxell. I picked them up at Best Buy last spring for about $39. They are the full sized type that cover the entire ear. They are powered by two AAA cells.
I bought them to be able to listen to some music while mowing the lawn. I have a couple of acres of grass that takes several hours to cut and my wife bought me an mp3 player to listen to while on the riding mower. The earphones that came with the player were useless with the back ground noise of the mower. However, the Maxell earphones work quite well. I can set the volume on the player at about 2/3 and hear the music quite well. There is a dramatic difference when you turn the active earphone power on and off. Interestingly, these headphones also work when there is no background noise to speak of. If you put them on and then begin to hum a tune and then turn on the power, you can cancell out your own humming!
I own a pair of custom-fitted “musician’s” earplugs and have tried the active type. They are very different. The active type cancel mostly lower-frequency (bass) notes, whereas the earplugs are just the opposite. They might complement each other well, but I’ve never tried them together!
The earplugs, being as they are custom made for my ears, are of course quite comfortable. I’ve also tried the “non-custom” versions of similar plugs and of course they’re not nearly as comfortable, but not awful, either. They have an outward pressure on your ear canal which gets annoying after a while, and they are harder to put in.
The active headphones are much heavier, however, and you wouldn’t want to wear them in a bar show, which is where I typically wear the earplugs. (I don’t like loud shows, avoid them when possible, and wear the earplugs when I decide to go anyway…)
Active sets use a wave cancelling technology to emit an “anit-sound wave” precisely out of phase with the external noise source. The effect is that there is a marked reduction in that sound to the ear. Passive plugs are only capable of lowering sound pressure levels (SPL) across a given spectrum. In aviation Bose and several other manufacturers make active headsets that can make an hours long flight in a small craft MUCh more tolerable…but they also come with a price - usually upwards of $1,000 for the better sets.
Of course, the generic sets designed for public use aren’t generally that expensive, but then their quality and actual SPL reductions can vary widely. I’d suggest doing some homework, and finding a dealer with a generous exchange/return policy just to save yourself from buyers remorse if you get stuck with a less than stellar set.
I have a pair of Etymotic Research ER-4P</a](http://www.headphone.com/layout.php?topicID=3&subTopicID=26&productID=0020100005">ER-4P</a)> headphones, and they are absolutely the best I have ever listened to. If you’ve ever worn earplugs, then you know what they will feel like. The tips do go into your ear a ways, but they aren’t in any danger of hurting you. The phones themselves take a bit of getting used to, because almost all headphones and speakers sold today are designed to be overly heavy on the bass frequencies, but listening to what the music is actually supposed to sound like becomes quite refreshing after a while.
And as far as the noise cancelling part goes, I can listen to Mozart on the DC Metro, going through tunnels, and catch every note without turning up the volume and hurting my ears. Something like 33 dB of blocking. The Bose active cancelling sets only cancel about 10 dB, so they aren’t nearly as good. Plus, Bose is not as great of an audio company as their press relases would have you believe, but that’s another issue. (Sorry, I’m an audiophile) The ER-6s](http://www.headphone.com/layout.php?topicID=3&subTopicID=26&productID=0020100100">ER-6</a>s) are about a hundred dollars less than the ER-4Ps I have, and I hear they are almost as good, so you might check them out if you aren’t sure. And as was mentioned above, you can get an audiologist to make a mold of your ear and get an absolutely perfect fit. I plan on doing that soon, but it’s another $100 bucks I can’t afford right now.
It’s sometimes helpful to go to epinions.com for customer reviews of electronic equipment. Some of these reviewers are real fanatics and give detailed pro/con reviews. When I find a consensus pointing at a particular model or brand, I look that one up.
Tony
Thanks. I’m still gathering information. I found some useful reviews, and some not some useful ones. At the moment, I would not use the headphones all that much so I have time. I am quite sensitive to noise so I could perhaps use them for general noise reduction in certain environments.