Noise cancelling headphones
May. 21st, 2007 05:24 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
khiemtranI was lucky enough to get myself a pair of noise cancelling headphones recently, or at least my company got me a pair, for which I am eternally grateful.
It's interesting to compare what these things do with what all the ads, review and literature seem to expect them to do. Basically, all the active noise cancelling part will do is attentuate constant, low-frequency sounds by up to 18 db. That's all. They won't provide total silence. They won't cancel out the high-frequency part of the sound of vacuum cleaner, let alone a jet engine. They won't cancel out the sound of the person talking next to you. They won't mask the crying baby two aisles back. If it's isolation you want, they won't do any better a job that a decent pair of earplugs. They won't provide audiophile-quality sound, even if they come with an audiophile pricetag. If you want isolation plus music, they won't do a better job than a pair of bud earphones underneath a pair of Peltor ear muffs.
What they do do, at least anecdotally from talking to my friends who've got them, is make a fifteen hour plane flight marginally more tolerable. And that's worth an awful lot to me. (They can also play a role as a status symbol among a certain type of traveller, but I'm unlikely to ever need that.) I don't particular like earplugs, and I don't want isolation when I'm on a plane. I'd much rather hear what the flight attendant is saying, and I'm pretty immune to the crying baby on aisle 34 anyway, thanks to the Not My Baby effect.
The true test, of course, will be how well they work on my next flight.
It's interesting to compare what these things do with what all the ads, review and literature seem to expect them to do. Basically, all the active noise cancelling part will do is attentuate constant, low-frequency sounds by up to 18 db. That's all. They won't provide total silence. They won't cancel out the high-frequency part of the sound of vacuum cleaner, let alone a jet engine. They won't cancel out the sound of the person talking next to you. They won't mask the crying baby two aisles back. If it's isolation you want, they won't do any better a job that a decent pair of earplugs. They won't provide audiophile-quality sound, even if they come with an audiophile pricetag. If you want isolation plus music, they won't do a better job than a pair of bud earphones underneath a pair of Peltor ear muffs.
What they do do, at least anecdotally from talking to my friends who've got them, is make a fifteen hour plane flight marginally more tolerable. And that's worth an awful lot to me. (They can also play a role as a status symbol among a certain type of traveller, but I'm unlikely to ever need that.) I don't particular like earplugs, and I don't want isolation when I'm on a plane. I'd much rather hear what the flight attendant is saying, and I'm pretty immune to the crying baby on aisle 34 anyway, thanks to the Not My Baby effect.
The true test, of course, will be how well they work on my next flight.
