Noise cancelling head phones

[ozwinner]

These thinks really work.
I have got a set of Altec Lansing, and they work great.
A set of Bose would have been good if I could afford it.

I cant hear my self singing to ACADACA, I wonder if the rest of the house can? :confused:

Al :p :D

[watson]

One of my sons, used some on a plane trip to Japan.......no plane noise.....watched all the movies......never got a meal.....and then he left them here.
The Wommo has been using them on her ride on....I stole them....replaced the batteries so that they worked!!.....and we are all happy!
I don't sing.....'cos then they could hear me!

The phones are fantastic, but "upgrade" of safety procedures is necessary.......no router noise....no table saw noise......(no inverted planer noise....Joke)....but ears will last a lot longer I hope.........WHAT???

Noel

[ozwinner]

I say 'ol Watson, I think you are talking about the ear muffs, not the ones that you use to listen to music with, say what?

Al :p

[watson]

G'day Al,
No ......electronic buggers..plug the sound in...adjust for minimal background noise....can't hear the 747....or the table saw.
I hope they're the same device....but they're labelled noise cancelling "doo hickies".
Hope he leave more of the same behind though.
Noel

[ozwinner]

Well they sound the same, well they would if I COULD HEAR!!

Al :p :p :p :p

[watson]

Smirk SMirk.......WHAT????

Noel

[Tex B]

Hmmm. I've got some Sennheiser's I use when I travel. They are great at reducing the airplane background noise, and when plugged into the ipod you can almost forget you're on a plane.

But, I never thought to use them in the workshop. Have to give that a try this weekend.

Great idea, Al. Thanks.

Tex

[ozwinner]

Great idea, Al. Thanks.

Tex


I think it Watson you should be thanking,:cool:
I use mine in the house.

Al :p

[watson]

I Don't Know.....they are fantastic.....they do what they say...cancel outside noise...But??
I've used them with a very noisy table saw.....no music plugged in.
I've used them with a router table...you know when your teeth ache with the high pitched noise....no music plugged in.
In all cases, I can null the noise of the tool I'm using, which is great for my ears....fingers??? don't know.
I think they are great , but maybe they should be used in the workshop with a "Warning Will Rodgers" recording plugged into them..just in case you forget the spinning thing you're working with.
(This is all from the same bloke that wanted to invert a hand planer, to make a jointer....smirk..giggle!!)
I'd be really interested in any other opinions,
But the things really work!!

Re gards,
Noel

[Shane Watson]

I have a set of Bose QC2 and they are brillant. As most on this board know, I travel a lot for work so sitting on planes listening to engines roaring and kids screaming for 2hrs got rather tiring.....So, jump on ebay, buy a pair of the bose qc2 from someone in the US, save myself just over 200 big ones by doing that and I am as happy as a pig in you know what on planes now. Can hear virtually nothing.
Oh, and yeah they work extra good with me ipod.

[noodle_snacks]

I won't offer my opinions on bose (not favourable and not interested in a flame war), but i believe these:

http://www.etymotic.com/ephp/er4.aspx

are difficult to beat in terms of outside noise suppression, combined with audio quality. The inner ear design isn't comfortable for more than about 4 hours though.

[kiwigeo]

Decidamp Brand Classic earplugs for me....two pieces of cylindrical foam rubber that you stick in your ears and they block out de noise. Have tried noise cancelling headphones and every brand of earplug known to man but when it comes to decibels for your dollar the Decidamp Classics come up tops.

[Tex B]

Tried the Sennheiser's in the shed this am. Have to say they did a great job. Far better than the muffs in the Triton Respirator (or my other set). I could defnitely still tell when the equipment was running (though I forgot about the dust extractor during a particularly great Chili Peppers guitar riff), so no concerns about touching a moving blade. But really excellent sound reduction from a lightweight set of headphones instead of a bulky set of muffs.

Thanks for the tip Noel and Al. Don't know why I never thought of using them in the shop before. Duh.

Tex

[GraemeCook]

Tex is right on.

Also, IMHO the audio quality of Sennheiser ear phones is better than most loudspeakers under about $5,000 or so - they really are that impressive.


Cheers

Graeme

[soundman]

These nois canceling head phones have been arround for quite some time but they use to be very very expensive. Bose were one of the first to bring them out commercialy, but of late there are lots more out there.

I am concerned that they are being viewed as a safety item. Unless the technology has been packaged in some for of rated ear protection I would not rely on them to protect your hearing.

These were always designed as a comfort item not a safety device.

I have seen rated hearing protection headphones for use in aviation that have this technology incorpirated to improve performance of the headphones and improve comfort. But apart from that I havn't seen any hearing protection claims.

There are limits to the capacity of the electronics....

cheers

[watson]

I agree Soundman, however, they do make a screaming router more comfortable to use, and their attenuation of noise appears to be a lot better than earmuffs.
I stick by my earlier posts, that I'm more worried about the fact that the attenuation is so good on some machines, that you could just forget that it's in finger eating mode.
Regards,
Noel

[ciscokid]

I've been using an off brand for years while using my tractor. After 10 hours on top of of a big turbo diesel, my ears would ring. Knew that couldn't be good. Plus, driving slow in perfectly straight lines for hours on end would make you go batty. (Think that's why I started woodworking.) Now I listen to CDs while I work and my ears don't ring and I stay entertained. Would like to upgrade this year however as the seals around the ears are starting to get hard. Guess I'll look into the Senheisers since you guys seem to like them.

Merry Christmas all!

[Toolin Around]

Hearing protection is one of those subjects I have a fair bit of interest in. I have quite a bit of loss even though I've always been religious about wearing protection - even in the days when only sooks wore the head phones. It's bad enough that I can't have a decent converstation with a person in a room where there's back ground noise and I'm only 42. My wife is always saying "did you hear that" or "turn the TV down"...

She says I should get my hearing tested. I way why, all they're going to do is confirm that i can't hear bugger all. I already know that!

I've wondered about those noise canceling devices (called them white noise generators in Canada).

Correct me if I'm wrong but sound waves are pressure waves traveling in a sine wave pattern - Db are a measurement of that pressure.

So when you generate an inverse pressure wave of the original it "cancels" the noise.

To me when I think about it I don't see how this is protecting your ears. Cause I don't think it's actually possible to cancel out a pressure wave in the true sense of what a pressure wave is - pressure. I have no idea how it causes the noise to disappear but I wonder what it's actually doing to the highly sensitive cilia in the ear drum.

Until I see the long term use data on them I won't wear them.

[soundman]

The noise cancleing thing does actualy work.....ie the actual phisics does happen.
however its only as good as the quality of the electronics and its capacity to produce enough negative power to counteract the noise.

then there is the malfunction issue...ie if due to incorrect use, adjustment, mechanical interferance with the works, battery failure or break down these things are capable of doing damage themselves.

If peltor had a real muff with this technology installed...... yep jow that would be a go.

there is no substitute for a good pear of ear muffs.

Mathew mate, even if your hearing is partly buggered it is worth getting things check out, there may be other "health issues" partly involved that may be able to be addressed to assist long term.
for instance Thickening of the mucus in th ear is a reasonably common cause of hearing loss and is somtimes involved where occupational dammage is present too.
at least if you get things check out you know what is going on.

cheers

[SawDustSniffer]

these sound canecling earphones use power to produce a sine wave 180 deg out of sink to the microphone on the out side of the ear phones , thay do not stop sound , rather than doubleing the amount of noise getting to your ears , your brain cant distigwish the sound but there is 2x as much ( ears ringing after tractor ride )
thay are fine for low level back ground noise but if you can hear the machine the head phones dont have enough power to cancel it , how loud is the ACDC up at full volume through the head phones ? unbearable ? and you can sill hear the machine over the head phones up at full volume

dont use them as ear muffs

[Petebass]

I bought a set of the Jaycar noise cancelling headphones for a recent trip to Thailand. They worked a treat. I usually get off planes with a splitting head ache but not this time. Audio sound quality isn't brilliant, but it's not too bad. And for $50 you can't complain.

I actually want to buy another set, but with small in-ear buds instead of big headphones. Does anyone know if there is such a thing available?

[BobL]

About to do some flying and so decided to get myself some noise cancelling headphones. After some recommendations from people at work, including someone who had the Bose phones, I went for the Jabra. The guy whose had the Bose for some time reckons the Jabra work equally as well as the Bose, but for about 1/4 the price.

Anyway what surprised me was how good they are just as earmuffs ie not even turned on. To me they sound nearly as good at knocking out sound as my Peltor Green earmuffs and quite a bit more comfortable. And . . . when you turn them on !!!! :oo: :oo: :oo: it's just eery! And you can still hear people speaking with them. In fact I can at times hear people speaking more clearly than without them - read on.

I'm legally deaf in one ear and nearly legally deaf in the other. More specifically my deafness is nearly all the the 2 - 4KHz range which is where many human speech consonants are produced. If there are any loud distracting noises around I find it very difficult to hear what is being said and since these phones dramatically supress high frequency hisses and low frequency rumbles I can hear speech more easily. I guess its the same as hearing aids except I don't believe that hearing aids are as good as supressing the background, they tend to over boost the consonant freq range.

With so many electonic gizmos around these days, being impressed by these devices is getting harder and harder but these sure impress me. Anyway, I don't plan on using them it the shed as I want to keep them clean for travelling.

[soundman]

don't be fooled by the aparant amount of attenuation provided by these NC headphones.

I looked at the figures on one of the units...... the actual figures arent real good. a half decent set of earplugs would do better and earplugs are considered very low protection.
cheers

[felixe]

I just got given a (belated) christmas present - a pair of Peltor "push to talk" earmuffs.
How are they :2tsup: :2tsup: :2tsup: :2tsup: /:2tsup: :2tsup: :2tsup: :2tsup: :2tsup:
Brilliant!!

[BobL]

don't be fooled by the aparant amount of attenuation provided by these NC headphones.

I looked at the figures on one of the units...... the actual figures arent real good. a half decent set of earplugs would do better and earplugs are considered very low protection.
cheers

I agree after some initial enthusiasm, and following more use, my perceptions are tempering and it's definitely more apparent than real. 22 dB noise reduction is pretty ordinary, so I'm definitely not going to use them in place of my Peltors in the shed.

However, I just got back from from a flight to Adelaide and the NC phones worked very well on the plane. All that rumblimg/hissing noise drives me batty and I often get off long flights with a head ache that lasts for days. I guess I could bring the Peltors along, but these things are a lot more comfortable and I could at least hear the movie with a bit of clarity. In fact, on the 767 back to Perth, with the headphones plugged the into the seat audio socket, the lowest (1) was a touch too loud! To hear anything with the standard plane phones I needed to have the setting on 4.

[rsser]

The Etymotic ER6's are rated up to around 30db from memory. They've got excellent audio quality and can be bought from the US for about 80 USD.

But the distraction potential is a serious issue for woodworking.

I have mates who use them on their motorbikes and I reckon it shows.

[Petebass]

don't be fooled by the aparant amount of attenuation provided by these NC headphones.

I looked at the figures on one of the units...... the actual figures arent real good. a half decent set of earplugs would do better and earplugs are considered very low protection.
cheers For workshop use, I totally agree. For planes or sitations where there's a low of low frequency noise, traditional earplugs don't cut it. That's where active noise cancelling works best ie <200Hz. Most power tools won't make any noise that low.

I just pulled the trigger on a pair of new Sony MDR-NC11 Noise Canceling headphones from Ebay ($65 including shipping from China). They're in the mail. They're the in-ear bud type which should hopefully make them more comfortable to wear on planes. I find it impossible to sleep on planes while wearing traditional style headphones.

I'm also going to try them on stage as an In-Ear monitor when i do gigs with my band. I doubt it will work too well, but it's worth a try.

[ciscokid]

So if noise cancelling headphones won't help me on my tractor, what will? Not driving it is not an option. Not being able to listen to some music during long stints is an option, just not an attractive one. What's the best product out there that will block the tractor's growl and, at the same time, enable me to listen to some big band while I mow fields? I don't listen to hard rock at ear splitting levels, but I do play guitar daily in front of 35 to 50 watt tube amplfiers (at reasonable levels). I really would like to keep my hearing.

[rsser]

I've just acquired a pair of Etymotic ER6 noise cancelling phones. Tried them in a suburban train on a bit more than moderate volume (couldn't adjust the source) and they blocked out all other noise. Can't yet say how they'd go on low volume but will post again if you're interested.

[BobL]

I've just acquired a pair of Etymotic ER6 noise cancelling phones.

I'd like to hear SoundMan's opinion on the ability of these "ear plugs" to really achieve 34-36 db sound protection.

[Petebass]

So if noise cancelling headphones won't help me on my tractor, what will? Not driving it is not an option. Not being able to listen to some music during long stints is an option, just not an attractive one. What's the best product out there that will block the tractor's growl and, at the same time, enable me to listen to some big band while I mow fields? I don't listen to hard rock at ear splitting levels, but I do play guitar daily in front of 35 to 50 watt tube amplfiers (at reasonable levels). I really would like to keep my hearing.Well the air force guys use a combination of passive filtering (i.e normal foam earplugs) and Active filtering (noise cancelling headphones).

The best way to replicate this and still be able to listen to music is with a set of noise cancelling earbuds like the ones I ordered (Sony MDR-NC11). Other possibilities include the Sony MDR-NC22, the Phillips SHN-2500, Phillips HN-060..... I'm sure there are more out there like this but that should get you started.

[ciscokid]

Thank you, PeteBass. :bgth: I will research those tomorrow. It is Spring here in the States and I am about to be married to my tractor seat for a while again. Music is my life. Hours on the tractor without it is torture.

My best regards,

Cisco Kid

[Petebass]

Thank you, PeteBass. :bgth: I will research those tomorrow. It is Spring here in the States and I am about to be married to my tractor seat for a while again. Music is my life. Hours on the tractor without it is torture.

My best regards,

Cisco KidHang on a sec, you're in the USA? That should give you plenty more makes and models to chose from. I pointed you towards those because they were either available in Australia, or sold by companies happy to ship to Australia.

Happy earphone hunting! I'll post a review of my Sony's when they arrive.

[soundman]

The alternative to noise canceling headphone in industrial noise situations is either earmufs with headphones built in, purpose made high attenuation headphones like those used in aviation or using good earmufs with earbud type headphones under.

the latter is not the best option.

I seem to remember peltor do both a earmuff with a radio built in and an earmuff with headphone capacity.
TELEX make a product called "heardefender" which are a high attenuation headphone.... I actualy own a couple of pairs of these.
There are a variety of avaition intercom headsets both the fancy brands and low cost alternatives that would do the job..... you could proably rig the up with the two way/cb or mobile phone too.

As to the use of non aviation, or non safety industry noise cancelling headphone type products as a hearing protection device.....not with my ears.

these HIFI products are designed as comfort devices to eliminate nucance noise.
If I was traveling by air a lot, or other noisy transport, or had noisy neibours, or was beset by yowling children...... i would most certainly invest in a pair.
But not for the workshop or on machinery.

Now the serious question is the provide suitable protection against nagging.:?:D :D
Or would that place the user at risk of a smack in the head:doh: :o

cheers

[journeyman Mick]

..............Now the serious question is the provide suitable protection against nagging.:?:D :D
Or would that place the user at risk of a smack in the head:doh: :o .........

I reckon the triton dust buster helmet/muffs/respirator setup might do the job there. (although you'd look a right wally watching telly in one:B )

Mick

[GraemeCook]

Cisko

I use Sennheiser cordless non-sound attenuating earphones on my stereo. The sound quality is excellent, and at least matches that of my Tannoy speakers with a replacement cost in excess of $10,000.

There is no doubt that sound attenuation ear phones do work well - not totally effective, but they do greatly reduce noise levels.

In your situation, I think I'd use a quality product like the Sennheisers, not Radio Shack junk.

As they are a safety product, then they are probably fully deductible for tax purposes - talk to your accountant.

Tame that Cat.

Cheers

Graeme

[Petebass]

........I'll post a review of my Sony's when they arrive.

OK they've arrived and I've quite disapointed. Scratch the Sony MDR-NC11's off your list. There's no noise cancellation at all. All the Noise cancelling feature does is add hiss. The noise cancelling headphones I bought previously from Jaycar for $50 work much better.

Furthermore, the earbuds don't do a very good job of sealing the ear canal. You have to jiggle them around to get a good seal, and as soon as you move it seal opens up. I have a pair of Sennhieser CX300's which do a MUCH better job of sealing the ear canal and sound much better, but they don't have noise cancelling.

So I guess the perfect product is one with the ear sealing on my Senny CX300's and the noise cancelling circuitry of my Jaycar headphones. I might have to pull out the "butchers knife" and soldering iron and make a "Franken-phones"...............

[Petebass]

Hold the phones (pun intended). There's more to the story of the disappointment of the Sony MDR-NC11's.

As stated in my post above, I have a pair of Sennhieser CX-300's which work very well for what they are. I noticed the same chinese company that sold me the Sony noise-cancelling headphones also sold Sennhieser CX-300 and the price looked quite good. So I bought a pair.

As soon as they arrived I noticed something was wrong. My original Sennhiesers have a 90 degree angle at the plug, these ones were straight. The original Sennhiesers have a completely closed capsule, these ones had small holes where the front and back pieces are prssed together. Thr original Sennhiesers seal the ear canal very nicely, these ones didn't. Last of all, the original Sennhiesers sound nice, these ones sound merely OK.

They're FAKE. Very good fakes in that you'd only ever know if you happened to have an original set to compare them to. But fakes nonetheless.

Which of course means I've been wrongly blaming Sony for producing what I though was an inferior product in the MDR-NC11's. Chances are the real Sony product will work. The question is wether or not I'm prepared to fork out more money to find out. At this point I'm thinking I will buy an original pair. The internet reviews indicate it's worth a try........

[sco]

A few years ago I had to travel to/from the US twice in one month. Given the amount of flying I did I invested in Sony MDR-NC20's. For a lot of flying some sort of noise cancelling is great. I would leave them on unplugged even if I wasn't listening to anything. I found that reducing the noise significantly reduced the amount of fatigue I suffered. It also enabled me to get some sleep after never being able to sleep on a plane previously.

Recently the sony's gave up (one ear started buzzing) and I've tried something different - Sennheiser CX300's. These style are known as canal phones - they're effectively earplugs with speakers. So there is no active component. Personally I prefer the canalphones over active cancellation. I found my ears would get sore with the sony's after a while and the noise active cancelling produced noticeable white noise. The canalphones do a better job of reducing noise for less than half the cost of the sony's and overall the sound quality is better with the Sennheisers.

However canalphones do come with some issues - there is that underwater effect where you can hear yourself more (e.g. swallowing, chewing) and vibration on the cord is transferred into noise in your ear. To use mine while walking I put the cord around the back of my neck and tuck the cord under a button to reduce vibration.

So it boils down to a personal preference.. try both styles if you can.

[Petebass]

....... I've been wrongly blaming Sony for producing what I though was an inferior product in the MDR-NC11's. Chances are the real Sony product will work. The question is wether or not I'm prepared to fork out more money to find out. At this point I'm thinking I will buy an original pair. The internet reviews indicate it's worth a try........

I pulled the trigger on a set of Sony MDR-NC22's. They cost $195 Australian and what a difference!!! These ones actually work well. The seal the ear canal as well as my Sennhieser CX-300's, they reproduce music better than the CX-300's, and the noise-cancelling feature actually works. Mind you the noise cancelling on my big $60 Jaycar headphones is a little better, but for the convenience of not having something bulky on my head, the Sony's are much prefered.

With the noise cancelling feature activated, the music becomes noticably louder. This also happened on my Jaycar headphones but not as pronounced. On the Jaycars you could assume the music gets louder because the ambient noise is reduced. I guess the same applies for the Sony's but I suspect there's something in the circuitry adding to it in this case. It's not a big deal, just something you need to remember - when you activate the noise cancelling, remember to turn the volume down.

Highly recommended!

[holmsy2000]

there are active noice canceling headphones designed to be used in place of standard ear muffs and there are ones designed to be used with a stereo for better sound quality, so long as you get the first ones you should be fine.
i work as a pilot of light planes and we have headphones of the same principal and they are fanastic. you cant hear any engine noise which is normally bloody loud.
so long as you use things for what theyre designed to do everything goes well.
brett

[Fuzzie]

A couple of years ago I somewhat tentatively bought a pair of CREATIVE HN-505 noise cancelling headphones prior to flying to Europe. I chose the Creatives because they were the cheapest ones I could find around here at the time, $69 at DSE. These 'phones cancel by generating white noise and they worked quite well. Interestingly you can actually feel a pressure change in the ears when you turn them on. A byproduct of the Creative design is that they actually amplify the source signal as well. I found this to be a nuisance when plugged into the aircraft sound system as the armrest control was a stepped volume and the lowest setting was actually too loud to comfortably listen to. By comparison when using the airline supplied headset I needed the volume set to 8 /10 to get reasonable audibility.

One other artifact of using the headphones plugged into the aircraft audio system was when announcements were made, the announcement volume is always set to full blast and combined with the inherent amplification of the headphone design caused major pain to my hearing. In the end I just used the headphones with either my own mp3 player or unplugged, as SCO suggest, to get relief from the constant plane noise.

I have used these on several trips until earlier this year when I flew Malaysia Airlines to Europe and I left the headphones at home because the MAS advertising stated they supplied noise cancelling headphones. Unfortunately this turned out to be out of date information. I guess they just couldn't keep up the supply of AAA batteries needed by these things. In any case during the stopover in KL I spotted a pair of Targus branded NC headphones which I purchased for $18AUS (btw the Creative ones were also available for $35). It was interesting to compare the two. On the plane the Creative are more comfortable, I found the clamp pressure of the Targus to be tiring. The Targus also doesn't generate the same amount of white noise and weren't as pleasant when wearing unplugged, HOWEVER the problem with extra amplification didn't exist and for the first time I actually watched a couple of airline movies all the way through, being able to hear the sound track clearly, so some part of the NC circuitry was doing its job well!

I don't use the NC headphones in the workshop, I don't have really noisy machines running that often and I don't think either style would be much good when walloping the mallet chopping out mortises either.

[Petebass]

Fuzzie, for $8, you could have got an in-line earphone volume control and solved all your problems. I use this one on planes and it's perfect.....

http://www.jaycar.com.au/productView.asp?ID=AA2004&CATID=&keywords=volume+control&SPECIAL=&form=KEYWORD&ProdCodeOnly=&Keyword1=&Keyword2=&pageNumber=&priceMin=&priceMax=&SUBCATID=

[Fuzzie]

Been there, got that later. However it wasn't an option the first time I used them, no jaycar at 10000 m above the Indian ocean, but it's a point potential buyers should be aware of.

Being cheap, or maybe its because I'm pathologically driven to try and make something rather than buy it, for the second volume control I wanted I actually bought a $2 set of cheap bud earphones with integrated inline volume control from Crazy Clarks , cutoff the buds and replace with a stero jack from DSE.

Stripping and soldering the hair fine conductors was interesting, and I saved myself oh say about 2.125 cents :-)

[soundman]

Now here we ahve a horse of a different colour.

If the headphones are producing white noise (or any noise) that wouldnt be a noise canceling process rather a noise masking process.

This sort of technology give no noise level reduction at all.... in fact it gives a substantial noise increase.
This sort of technology can very easily result in hearing damage.
Add, ofending background noise, pluss masking noise and the increased music level to get over the other noise and very soon you have an unaceptably high sound preasure level.
The big problem is because of all the other noise the music will not seem loud at all.

This sort of technology is not clever.

cheers

[Petebass]

I pulled the trigger on a set of Sony MDR-NC22's.......
Highly recommended! Just a quick update - Two interstate plane trips later and I'm still very happy with these NC earphones. If you're looking for a set of in-ear NC earphones, look no further.