this post was submitted on 04 Jun 2024
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This is kinda the nature of active noise cancellation, unfortunately. Blocking out sudden noise is just technically very challenging. Works great for airplane noise, not so much for crying babies.
Sony's XM line is in my opinion just about the best ANC headphones money can buy, in terms of noise cancelling and sound quality combo. I can understand your point about them getting sweaty. Part one of blocking noise is good sound insulation, which tends to hold in heat as well. I live in a colder climate so that works out well for me. You could get in-ear ones, although obviously they don't block out noise as well.
Have you tried the Bose ones mentioned in this thread, or Apple's crazy expensive ones?
Yeah, if I lived somewhere where it went under 20 degrees celsius I can see the appeal. It has been 40+ lately which has made using them pretty horrid, so I've stuck to earplugs when cycling instead.
Bose also makes really nice ones. It's been a while since I tried a Bose but the QuietComfort 35 II were really solid headphones. Little bit less bassy than the Sony (which is a question of taste), very comfortable, and the noise cancelling is quite good.
I haven't tried the apple ones. Knowing apple products, it's probably really good but way overpriced.
Edit: See sushibowl's explanation below why this is incorrect
What do you mean that blocking sudden noise in technically very challenging? I might be wrong, but from what I have gathered is that ANC is based on playing a "negative" of a pressure wave picked by the microphones in phase with the original wave. Thus it has to react to all sounds in the time that the pressure wave travels from the microphone to the ear, so it shouldn't matter whether the noise is constant (airplane) or sudden (gunshot).
Of course if the headphones have some kind of pass-through active, then it might take a while until software decides to activate ANC, but that is not a limitation of ANC itself
That's the theory, but it's almost impossible to do in practice. Your microphone and speaker are imperfect at capturing and reproducing sounds. The phase timing is incredibly sensitive. You only have milliseconds to do the processing and generation.
That's why practical noise cancelling relies on feedback loops. A second microphone inside captures the result of the cancellation, and based on that adjustments can be made to the negative signal. This allows you to correct for lots of sources of error and achieve quite a good result. Of course, for a sudden noise like a gunshot, by the time the feedback loop can really kick in, the noise is already over.
Oooooh that makes so much sense, I had been wondering why lifting the earcup slightly doesn't amplify the sound, but that explains it. Thank you for the clarification!
Active hearing protection is better for sudden noises and some of them have connections for aux cables but the speakers are low quality and they're designed only to understand someone talking and that's it.