I’ve got a audio/tech question, maybe someone here might have some insight into.

I’m in need of noise cancellation for various and sundry reasons. i own a pair of BOSE ANC headphones which are tits, but have been looking for a pair of GOOD ANC earbuds that don’t cost $300 bucks, and had an idea that all ANC appears to be, when you break it down, is sound that the earphones/earbuds produce which bounce around in the ear canal and hit the ear drum in certain ways as to “cancel” out various types of background noise.

Again the ANC on my BOSE are amazing. Does anyone know, or have even heard of (no pun intended) anyone who has produced “noise cancelling” sound files?

It seems as if noise cancelling hardware like earphones are producing sounds that cancel out noise, mp3/flac files of “noise cancelling” sound could be on offer somewhere.

Dunno, figured i’d ask. Hope this is the right place to do that, and I’m not breaking any rules, I didn’t know where else to post this.

  • Boozilla@lemmy.worldEnglish
    16·
    6 months ago

    The A in ANC stands for Active. It is actively listening to ambient noise in your environment to cancel it out with a waveform tailored to do so in real time. If the noise in your environment is very static (like a hum or whirring) it might be possible to embed a cancelling sound in the audio file. But it’s likely it still won’t line up properly to really cancel it. It’s more likely to cause a worse sound because of being out of phase (like two leaf blowers going at the same time).

    I hope that makes sense.

      • czardestructo@lemmy.worldEnglish
        12·
        6 months ago

        So I work for Bose. ANR ear buds are notably better than ANR headphones because they totally block your ear and adjust the ANR based on a microphone literally inside your ear. It records what is heard in your ear and cancels it, our latest buds are uncomfortably good at this. I find the absolute quiet a bit unsettling.

        But to your question, you just want quiet while you sleep? What about good old foam ear plugs? They work fairly well when put in far enough.

          • czardestructo@lemmy.worldEnglish
            3·
            6 months ago

            Im wondering if the passive attenuation of your headphones is doing more work than the ANR system is? Regardless sound is perception and that’s all that matters. I think using any ear bud, headphone or even a speaker with Brown Noise playing loudly is likely the only sure way to completely block out your perception of all noise. Or just take some gummies and turn your brain off :)

        • solrize@lemmy.worldEnglish
          1·
          6 months ago

          the absolute quiet

          WANT. I didn’t know that existed now. Best I’ve been able to do is foamies, that are better than nothing, but still let in a lot of sound. I will go look for new Bose IEM’s. Thanks.

          Added: Bose QuietComfort Ultra Earbuds, I think. I’ll see what I can find out. 6 hour runtime is a bit unfortunate though, not enough to get through a work day.

          Btw, a lot of the blurb about these is about music playback quality and I don’t want that at all. No music, just quiet. If they are 10db quieter at speech frequencies than typical 32db NRR foamies then that is probably worth the $250 to me. The amount of productivity I lose to office chatter distraction exceeds that in like no time.

          Is there a reasonable way to replace the batteries once they crap out? Frankly I’d be fine with a wired version.

          • czardestructo@lemmy.worldEnglish
            1·
            6 months ago

            The latest out in the world, the Quiet comfort ultras. Once you find the correct sized stability band and ear tip sizes you have two exceptional gaskets to block out the world. They work amazingly well.

      • pitaya@lemm.eeEnglish
        2·
        6 months ago

        You could try playing white noise through normal earbuds, it might block some of the noise. It wouldn’t be as effective as noise cancelling, but it’s worth trying

      • Donjuanme@lemmy.worldEnglish
        2·
        6 months ago

        Overwhelming the noise is another option, a white noise soundtrack might be a decent bet. Otherwise you’re going to want to go with ear plugs.