Noise Canceling Headphones

Post Reply New Topic

I don’t know how to use them, can anyone help me?

You don't have to do anything to use them. The headphones essentially listen to your environment and create a counter sound-wave to the sound waves around you, from a built-in microphone, but they aren't perfect and there still can be occasional noises that you will hear.

In my experience, noise-cancelling headphones are more like noise-reducing headphones, but the better quality a set that you own, the more sound they will block, typically.

A useful explanation is contained in the following video:

Suppose you are sitting in a boat on a lake. If a speed boat comes past it makes waves. If someone in a rowboat 20 feet away drops a big stone the size of a soccer ball into the water it makes waves. If someone very clever makes a machine that measures waves coming towards your boat 3 feet away and uses some special motor driven paddles hidden in the water one foot away from your boat exactly opposite the waves coming towards your boat: every peak has a valley that exactly matches it moving the same speed but in the opposite direction. All the waves coming to your boat would be flattened out perfectly about 2 feet from your boat. The water surrounding your boat would be calm and flat.

A good pair of active noise canceling earphones, like Bose over the ear, they do the same thing with with sound waves (which are compression waves).

Sort of. The technology isn’t perfect. But it does really work better than regular headphones for blocking out some kinds of noise.