Noise Canceling In Headphones: What Is It Exactly?
Business
Noise Canceling In Headphones: What Is It Exactly?
Author
Daniel Gniazdo
Posted
April 24, 2015
Reading time
4
minutes
If you've ever purchased headphones or earphones, I bet you've heard the term "noise cancellation" used once or twice. I can also bet you weren't always quite sure what it meant. It's not your fault: Depending on the context, noise cancellation can mean a number of things, and companies aren't exactly consistent in how they use the term. Let's try to solve the riddle.
First, there are two main types of noise cancellation: one in the microphone(s) and one in the headphones themselves. The first type helps the person on the other end of the line hear your voice instead of the heckling in the bar you're calling from. The second type protects
you
– the wearer – so as not to be disturbed by this same bar noise.
Now let's look at each of them in a little more detail.
Microphone Noise Cancellation
It doesn't directly benefit you. Instead, it helps others hear you better. Noise-canceling microphones are designed to pick up your voice while ignoring background noise. We've already covered noise-canceling microphones
in a previous post
.
This noise suppression can be achieved
in different ways
, including microphone shape and placement, digital signal processing, and other technical terms. Some headsets even come with a
special windsock
which virtually eliminates all wind noise.
More advanced headsets use multiple mics to really kick the noise cancellation up a notch. How? In a nutshell, the two mics have some distance between them, which means one of them is closer to your mouth than the other. While the former picks up your voice, the other picks up more surrounding noise. Combined with certain digital algorithms, they "subtract" surrounding noise from the equation, leaving only your voice. sound like voodoo, but it works.
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Companies use different brands for their dual-mic noise cancellation. Jabra calls theirs
Noise BlackoutTM
, for example. In the end, the basic principle is the same: your voice gets the green light, while the background noise is stopped at the door.
So if you don't want to be the friend who always sounds like he's in a wind tunnel or on the set of an action movie, headphones with noise-canceling microphones might be for you.
Noise canceling in headphones
That's what most of us tend to think of when we hear the words "
noise canceling headphones
. "That's what helps the wearer muffle out ambient noise and focus on talking to someone or listening to music. You see people wearing these types of headsets on long flights to do silence the cries of babies and the sound of airplane engines.
To make things even more confusing, there are two types of noise cancellation: passive and active.
this
average? I'm glad you asked…
Passive noise cancellation
This is the noise cancellation achieved by the physical characteristics of the headphones, such as the design and the materials used. It's really just a fancy term to describe the effect you get just by wearing the headphones. These bulky earmuffs you see construction workers wearing?Yes: passive noise cancellation.
Passive noise cancellation is great for filtering out irregular high-frequency sounds, like your co-worker Bob who can't stop excitedly talking about the latest episode of his favorite TV show. Although this is typically used in music headphones, some
new office headsets
are also designed to completely cover your ears and block out external sounds. If you work in a busy open-plan office, this can be a godsend!
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Active noise cancellation
Active Noise Cancellation uses more advanced technology to – overhear – actively counteract noise. Basically, it detects and analyzes the sound pattern of incoming noise, then generates a mirror"
anti noise
signal to cancel it. The end result is that you hear a significantly reduced noise level.
This type of noise cancellation works best for stable low-frequency sounds, like ceiling fans, engine noise, or that same co-worker Bob who keeps humming along to the theme from his favorite TV show. active noise cancellation in stereo headphones, which have the ability to block both your ears and truly eliminate noise, but
some mono headphones
also use it to help you hear better. You can learn a lot more about active noise cancellation in
This article
.
The most modern helmets
Use both microphone and headset noise cancellation to make the conversation sound better on both ends of the call.
***
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