Noise Cancelling Headphones

How do noise-cancelling headphones work?

The science of how the technology works

By: Kyle Agano

If you listen to your music, and are constantly interrupted by cars, or that darn yellow school bus loud engine, you should get noise-cancelling headphones. But how do these headphones work? Is it magic? Well, no. It is actually really simple, but it took about 42 years for BOSE to find the tech to do it (and no, they’re not just really insulated) .

The Science.

When you get a pair of noise-cancelling headphones and click to use the noise-cancelling setting, the microphones on the headphones are activated. It’s always listening to you and your surroundings. This is because the sound wave that you and your surrounding produces are going into the mic in the headphone and the headphones try to produce the exact opposite sound wave of the sound coming in. It’s like science. When a positive proton (the surrounding sound) and the negative electron (the opposite sound wave) are produced by the headphone, they cancel each other out (neutron). When that happens the noise is eliminated. Gone. But not everything gets cancelled out. The technology works best with constant noises like the schoolbus, airplane engines, and more. This is because when it is constant it is easier for the headphone to cancel it because it doesn’t produce much sound waves. Plus they were designed to work best in constant-noise environments. What the headphones don't cancel out is sudden-high-pitched noises. These include car honks, babies crying, alarm clocks, and really anything that is sudden and produces a high-pitch noise is hard to cancel out on even the most expensive pair of headphones.

But which brand should I get? I say you go for the SONY-1000XM4. It has been rated well by famous YouTubers, and trusted sources such as CNET. But the first two companies that should come to mind when getting noise cancelling headphones are BOSE and SONY.