Gadgetory

noise if you're at like a big-time gaming convention a concert or a sporting event it might be part of the experience but the incessant sound of a jet engine when you're on a plane or that annoying co-worker in the next cubicle who won't shut up about the missing stapler can drive you out of your mind so how do we control unwanted environmental noise without strapping pillows to our heads enter active noise control a technology for reducing irritating background noise that most often appears in the consumer market as noise cancelling headphones so how do they work well surprisingly they actually block noise with um more noise wait what how the heck does that work Linus are you talking about white noise or something actually not exactly although it might intuitively seem like cancelling out noise with other noise doesn't make any sense the technology relies on what's actually a pretty straightforward principle of physics even if you slept through your classes as you probably know regardless of what kind of student you were sound travels in waves and waves have peaks and troughs or valleys like you'd see if you were hanging out at the beach if two waves combined they create a resulting wave that is basically the sum of the original two so if you have two waves that meet so that the peaks of one wave end up exactly with the peaks of another it'll actually dramatically increase the amplitude on the other hand if the peaks line up exactly with the troughs of the other then we say they are out of phase and the waves can cancel each other out completely so noise cancelling headphones use this principle by listening to the background noise with a dedicated microphone or microphones and producing out of phase sound or anti noise that literally destroys incoming sound waves before they reach your ears combine this with special noise absorbing material built into the headphone cups in some models and you've got some pretty serious sound isolation so if you want to pick up a pair of noise cancelling cans to help you focus at work or just block out the screaming kid that lives above you what should you consider before forking over your cash to Bose or whoever else well one of the biggest concerns with this kind of headphone is battery life unlike regular headphones which usually just run off the power provided by your PC or smartphone or whatever else has a headphone jack headphones with active noise control need a separate power source usually a battery so pay attention for this when you're looking through reviews especially as some models won't mention at all how long it takes for the battery to die and whether you can continue to use them when they're not powered you should also consider how comfortable your new noise cancelling headphones will be because the extra electronics needed to mask outside sound does add extra weight and bulk and a poorly designed pair of heavy phones may not be comfortable for extended use and then finally for you audio files out there don't expect the same kind of expansive soundstage as you would have expected from the open backed headphone as noise cancelling sets are closed to keep out as much ambient sound as possible still though many headphones with active noise control do offer solid sound quality good thing too as noise cancelling headphones do tend to be more expensive than their passive counterparts so don't be completely put off with it even if it's not the kind of thing you would sit in your easy chair and listen to but then what if you don't want to have to wear headphones to block out distracting sounds a number of companies are actually now making speakers that feature the same active noise control system imagine that a speaker embedded in your car's headrest to drown out road noise we've even seen large-scale noise cancellation deployed at the Eurovision Song Contest to drown out crowds booing performers based on what country they're from an interesting application for sure but I 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