The 'Look What the Postman Brought Me' Thread - Technology Edition

[Snowy]

Yeah they are an expensive buy, but the ability to lock yourself away from the world and experience music in such clarity is worth the outlay imo.

The noise cancelling is absolutely nuts, quite how they deaden the noise of the outside world is nothing short of witchcraft.

[eny]

It monitors the noise and replays it out of phase which cancels it....the opposite would double the output which is how the LOUD function in radios works.

Eg, a note of say 60hz (waveforms) a second is played, and the same feed played at a delay that corresponds to halfway through the waveform would cancel the sound of both....type thing

[Mantis]

The feature where you hold your hand over one of the ear cups and it reverses the cancellation so that everything is amplified around you is a really useful little extra. No more pausing music or taking headphones off to hear when people are speaking.

[Drarok]

It monitors the noise and replays it out of phase which cancels it....the opposite would double the output which is how the LOUD function in radios works.

Eg, a note of say 60hz (waveforms) a second is played, and the same feed played at a delay that corresponds to halfway through the waveform would cancel the sound of both....type thing

If it were based on delaying, wouldn't you have to delay each frequency by a different amount, and then once that frequency stopped making a noise, you'd hear the delayed one on its own at the end?

I assumed these worked by inverting the sound wave, making peaks into troughs and vice versa.

[Alan]

The only noise cancelling ones I have are my momentum’s and I hate it and hate so much that you can’t actually disable it if using Bluetooth. It colours the sound with that underwater vooshing and most of the time I don’t actually want noise cancelling because of where I wear them.

That said, I’d be real interested in trying out more modern noise cancelling. I take it it still has that swishy background sound because i suppose it’s kind of unavoidable given the method?

[Raid]

No, the Sony ones just deaden the sound of anything outside the earcups; there's no noticeable extra noise created. It's like wearing a pair of ear defenders, but that are lightweight and comfortable enough to wear all day. It's eerie the first time you try them.

[Mantis]

They are pretty remarkable. I have a pricey pair of in ear noise cancelling Sennheiser's and the difference is pretty significant. Even on the plane, the Sony's were letting in only the tiniest background noise. When walking around the airport departure terminal and spending 3 hours sat on a coach everything was totally silent so all I could hear was my music. It's very peaceful to just put something chilled out on and escape the bustle, particularly at the airport.

The sound quality of the music is top notch too, you can really pick all the little details out of a mix.

[Raid]

Yeah, I walk to work listening to podcasts and the traffic noise is never louder than the (relatively softly spoken) presenters. They're doing some sandblasting on the main road bridge in the centre of Lancaster at the moment, and it's ear-splittingly loud normally (my old headphones, even at their highest volume setting, couldn't overpower it). I can still hear said podcast clear as day over it.

[eny]

It monitors the noise and replays it out of phase which cancels it....the opposite would double the output which is how the LOUD function in radios works.

Eg, a note of say 60hz (waveforms) a second is played, and the same feed played at a delay that corresponds to halfway through the waveform would cancel the sound of both....type thing

If it were based on delaying, wouldn't you have to delay each frequency by a different amount, and then once that frequency stopped making a noise, you'd hear the delayed one on its own at the end?

I assumed these worked by inverting the sound wave, making peaks into troughs and vice versa.

Yeah phase inversion is the way they work, I was just illustrating how you can negate one frequency to give an idea of what happens....

[Wrathbone]

I'm thinking of getting a pair of the Sonys for office use. This may be a stupid question given that they're noise cancelling, but is there any sound leakage? My current office earphones sound great, but if I turn them up more than about a third then everyone else has to listen to whatever rubbish I'm developing to. Plus I can still hear everyone asking where the distant noise of the Spice Girls or Sousa's greatest military themes is coming from.

[Mantis]

I can sit with mine on at the office with my phone volume at about 75% and my colleague three feet away can't hear it. When I max the volume out it does get noticeably a lot louder though and you can hear them fairly clearly from nearby.

[Wrathbone]

Awesome, cheers mate.

[Snowy]

I would second that. My first outing with them was on a plane (and what a revelation) but I had them cranked up. When my wife asked to try them, I could clearly hear some meaty metal leaking from them, and promptly looked apologetically at the chap on the other side of me. To be fair to him he hadn't said anything, but hearing other people's shit is a pet hate of mine so I felt bad.

[Wrathbone]

I ended up getting them, and they're exceptional. I tried some of my dad's Sony noise cancelling headphones from a couple of generations ago, which were good, but these are great. The NC quality has really come on leaps and bounds, and the overall sound quality is significantly better than my old trusty Audio-Technicas (which are pretty damn good for around £100). My ears are very happy.

[Snowy]

I like to think of us all clad in these (they seem a TGA favourite) typing posts in utter serenity while the world explodes around us