Any recommendation on a set of a headphones that will reduce ambient noise. Unfortunately the frequency range is full band. From ******* kids playing screaming (like, literally screaming) out the back of my place, to the washing machine beside my computer. I had a look at direct sound noise isolating headphones and things like bose quiet comfort and sennheiser equivalent. I thought the isolating ones would be best at giving wider band noise reduction but I've seen reports of the headband falling apart after some use. Which frankly I don't want to deal with given their price. The active ones probably won't be as good at cutting down on the ******* kids. In ears would probably be better but I'd prefer the convenience and comfort of a headset.
I've just got a pair of Sony MDR 10R and they are great. I got them at half price too, only to then see the noise cancelling ones of only £20 more a week later From what I have heard the NC version is better due to the NC, obviousl,y and also having a built in amp. They also continue to function if the battery for the NC goes dead, which a lot of NC headphone do not.
Active cancellation will only really help with continuous/repetitive sounds (e.g. engine noise). For more random/intermittent noise you need passive cancellation: sound muffling. The kings of passive noise blocking are In Ear Monitors (AKA IEMs, 'Canalphones') with foam eartips (aftermarket Comply foam tips are easily available), or if you have more money to spend a custom moulded eartip. If you find these too uncomfortable (some do), closed circumaural ("the foam goes around the ear rather than on it") headphones would be the best option. The Sony MDR-7506 are pretty much the Standard Monitoring Headphone for the TV/film/music industires. They are decently isolating and have an excellent close-to-flat response, and are not too difficult to drive from a portable device if need be (though a small headphone amplifier would be a good investment to prolong battery life).
Thanks edzieba, I'll check those sonys as well. I was also considering these sennheiser, which claim to have up to -32db attenuation. http://en-us.sennheiser.com/monitoring-headphone-studio-professional-audio-hd-380-pro It looks like the best cancellation comes from in ear headphones. I've had a look at the hf5 http://www.etymotic.com/consumer/earphones/hf5.html which seem to be good at isolating. However a linus tech tips review said they were quite uncomfortable I have used custom molded ear plugs in the past for external attenuation and they were pretty comfortable. I still prefer on ear though for comfort.
I wonder if budget was no concern, could you technically erect say 4 to 6 speakers to a computer along with sensor mics and do what Bose headphones do, to opposite wave form noise cancel all sounds. And produce a near vacuum sound booth, obviously sound waves are air pressure changes so technically there will one day be a way of doing it as it just means an almost infinite real time monitor and compensation audio system, would be good for privacy and quite meeting requirements, even in busy places. Any one know if this has ever been worked on?
With my 10r I can hardly hear a thing so I can only imagine that the NC version is better. As I said though be careful as most active noise cancelling headphones wont work at all if the battery dies, something I can only imagine to be super annoying.
Yes. It works in theory, but in practice you need to cover the walls of the room in transducers, cover a shell a significant distance outside that (several meters, to allow for processing delay) in a dense array of microphones, and have a large amount of processing power available to perform the acoustic modelling (because you're not in a vacuum, and there are pesky things like walls, wiring for your speakers, mics and amplifiers, etc in the environment) and to decode the phased array of mics and encode the phased transducer array, and even then you're limited by the maximum flat-response output of a single transducer for the maximum sound amplitude you can cancel. It's not practical with an unlimited budget. With a mere handful of 5/7 speakers, it simply doesn't work.
