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The Best Noise Cancelling Headphones (PASSIVE) On Ear Style (Supra-aural) headphones
Why should YOU consider buying the best noise cancelling headphones? Well, for starters, how about to save your hearing? I’ll bet you’ve had this experience: You had your headphones on listening to your favorite music and felt frustrated because you weren’t able to hear it as well as you’d like. What comes next? Bingo! You crank up the volume as high as it will go. Now, you should realize that turning up the volume blasting right into your eardrums is damaging to your hearing. Over time, it can actually cause permanent hearing loss. Besides that, with cheapo headphones instead of the best noise canceling headphones, simply increasing the volume is not going to improve the quality of the sound because the background noise will still be there. Worst case scenario, you get so disgusted with trying to listen to shoddy sound that you give up on listening to music through headphones. Good news! You have landed on the right site to make those problems go away forever! Just browse through our noise canceling headphone reviews to find some of the most highly recommended, best noise cancelling headphones available today for whatever your listening situation may be. Want our opinion on a model you don’t see here? Just use our handy Comments/Advice page to shoot us a message and we’ll be right back with you! Noise cancelling headphones are ideal for those locations with a lot of ambient noise. Drastically reducing the sounds from airplanes, crowded offices, commuter trains and similar noisy locations can work wonders to save you from potential hearing loss, not to mention the frustration of being unable to hear whatever you’re trying to listen to. Basically, there are two broad categories of noise cancelling headphones: 1. Active 2. Passive Active: As a general rule, active are the best noise cancelling headphones, especially for specific sources of loud sounds that produce frequencies at both extremes of the sound spectrum…low and high. Some people believe that active noise cancelling headphones don't do a good job of blocking out higher frequencies, but I have not personally found that to be the case. The exception to this is a sudden burst of noise. The passive noise cancelling headphones---"in ear" and closed-backed headphones---can block out just as much noise from a pure decibel standpoint, but will let in those extreme frequencies. However, most active noise cancelling sets do combine a passive noise cancelling feature with the active feature, allowing them to do an excellent job at both. Advantages:
Disadvantages:
Active noise cancellation is separated from passive noise cancellation by virtue of requiring an additional power source---a battery---to reduce ambient noise. When the passive effects and active effects of actively cancelling headphones are combined, they have the potential to block over 70% of outside noise disturbance. This is great! How it Works Active noise cancelling headphones, such as the Bose QuietComfort 3 have a microphone and special circuitry in addition to all the usual headphone circuitry. At a basic level the microphone on the headphone picks up the ambient noise around you and relays it to the special circuitry. The special circuitry interprets the sounds and mimics it in an inverse, or opposite, manner. The inverse sound it produces is then sent through the headphone speakers and cancels out the ambient noise around you. Voila! Just pure listening pleasure without the distraction and interference of ambient noise!
The concentration on the low frequency sound spectrum ofactive noise cancelling headphones has the unique benefit of reducing fatigue due to prolonged exposure to low frequency sound. This is a great benefit for frequent fliers! In fact, a low frequency sound spectrum can literally make you sick. Many office workers get unusually fatigued, or even sick, at work and don’t know why. The culprit might be the fans in air-conditioning units vibrating at a low frequency. This works along the same principle as animals that become disturbed before an earthquake or storm due to the low frequency vibration prior to the event. Low frequency sound is used during movies during high tension moments because these sounds tend to make people feel jittery and on edge. What it boils down to is that as a rule of thumb, low frequency sound is just plain old unpleasant. Some say that although active noise canceling headphones cancel out the ambient noise around you, they also muffle the sound quality from your audio source. This will vary by individual headphones. Some retain sound quality better than others. Check out our recommendations shown above to find the best noise cancelling headphones available. For instance, a lot of users are of the opinion that the Audio-Technica ATH-ANC7B is a solid, inexpensive model that delivers a lot of bang for your buck. Now let’s look behind Door Number Two. Passive: Advantages:
Disadvantages:
Let’s begin this section by saying that all headphones provide some level of noise isolation. The thing is, some do a better job of it than others. If you are looking to avoid the price tag on active noise cancelling headphones, then your best bet for the best noise cancelling headphones of the passive variety will probably be closed circumaural headphones with an over-the-ear fit, such as the
Audio-Technica ATH-M50
or perhaps "in ear" headphones like the
Klipsch Image S4.
All of this vocabulary is probably getting confusing right about now, so here are a few pictures to help visualize the different types so that you know what to steer clear of.
Essentially, passive noise canceling headphones are a sort of a one-trick pony. They do one thing: create a seal between your ear and the headphone, thus reducing unwanted noise. This simple strategy can block, on average, about 15 decibels or 25% of all sound across a broad spectrum of frequencies. It’s important to note that they can let extreme frequencies in from each end of the spectrum. To get a good idea of which ones perform the best, check our best noise cancelling headphones reviews since the actual amount of noise blocked will vary from one pair to another. Also, it is not uncommon for manufacturers to overestimate the percentage of noise reduction. Imagine that! "In Ear" style passive noise cancelling headphones such as the
Etymotic HF2
are popularly believed to block about 10-15% more ambient noise than closed circumaural style headphones.
In-ear canal example, not to be confused with the Earbud style pictured above.
However, based on my own experience, this is largely dependent on the seal formed by ear-canal headphones. If it’s a good, tight seal; there is obviously better noise blockage than a loose seal. So, in a nutshell…although ear-canal headphones have the potential to reduce noise more effectively than closed circumaural headphones, the bottom line is that closed circumaural types such as the Pioneer HDJ-2000 will do a better job more consistently. Bear in mind that there are still several models that would undoubtedly be among the best noise cancelling headphones available that I simply haven't had the pleasure of reviewing yet. So, if you prefer, I've also set up a link to Amazon's 4-star rated and better noise cancelling headphones here. This is also a fantastic place to read reviews contributed by people who have actually used the products, which I consider an essential step in the shopping and buying process, whether I’m looking for headphones or almost anything else. Want to save your hearing while still being able to listen to your audio devices without distractions of outside noise? Check out a pair of noise canceling headphones today and experience audio the way it was meant to be! Got questions or just want to make a comment or suggestion? Use the
"Comments/Advice Page"
to contact me! We welcome your comments!
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