Noise-canceling headphones or noise-canceling headphones are headphones with a digital noise-canceling system inside. They cut out various noises around the wearer, such as the sound of cars, people talking, or the atmosphere in a shopping mall. This allows the wearer to barely hear the noise around them while listening to music, watching movies, or playing games. The silence while wearing headphones is many times quieter than headphones without a noise-canceling system!
Noise-canceling headphones have various microphones inside. The working process of the active noise cancelling system is as follows:
The headphones will absorb the noise waves around the wearer through the microphone on the headphones into the headphones in the form of digital sound waves. When the headphones absorb the noise around the headphones, the headphones will copy (duplicate) those noise waves and invert the waves (invert the phase) before taking the inverted sound waves and superimposing them with the noise waves that were initially absorbed. When the inverted sound waves are superimposed on the noise waves around the headphones, it will cancel out the sound waves (phase cancellation) or become "noiseless sound waves". Then the headphones will send quiet sound waves that have no sound into our eardrums all the time while we are on the mode. As a result, we hear the noise around us much softer or to the point where we can barely hear the noise around us.
The noise canceling system will enhance the listening experience by canceling external noise. But you should understand the following:
- Headphones will consume more power from the headphone battery: When on, the headphones will consume more battery power from the headphones. Because the noise-canceling system requires energy to process and manage noise.
- Affects sound quality: It has been proven that the noise-canceling system can slightly affect the sound quality of the headphones. If we measure the headphones as an SPL graph in a sound wave measurement program, we will clearly see that the sound graph measured when the noise-canceling mode is “on” and the sound graph measured when the noise-canceling mode is “off” are different. However, when comparing the sound with real ears, it is quite difficult to hear the difference in sound because it is so small that we hardly feel the change in sound.
- Some noise-canceling headphones may cause slight dizziness: Some noise-canceling headphones transmit very strong sound waves, which may cause some users to feel slight dizziness.
Noise-cancelling systems are divided into 2 types:
1. Passive Noise Isolation
Passive Noise Isolation systems are earplugs or rubber plugs, such as in-ear headphones. When used with rubber plugs (or foam) that fit our ears, they can block out surrounding noise very well. They also prevent noise from leaking to disturb others.
2. Active Noise Cancelling
Active Noise Cancelling is an electrical noise-cancelling system that is more effective than Passive Noise Isolation. This system uses a microphone to receive sound and process it to cut it off. It then sends it to the noise-cancelling system to create waves in the opposite pattern to cut off that noise. Therefore, when we listen through headphones, we hardly hear any noise from other sources. Currently, it has been further developed with the cVc or Clear Voice Capture system from Qualcomm CSR. With this cVc technology, in addition to cutting out noise as before, it also improves the sound quality after cutting with the Noise Cancelling system. It also helps improve the sound quality after cutting with the Noise Cancelling system. It also helps prevent data (sound) from being lost from the operation of the Noise Cancelling system, thus in addition to eliminating noise. It also helps improve sound quality better than general Noise Canceling systems. It does not consume much battery. Therefore, it can be used with Marshall, Motif A.N.C., Motif II A.N.C., Monitor II A.N.C., Monitor III A.N.C. headphones.