Noise-canceling headphones are great once you use them you will never want to go back to the “Standard” headphones. For those of you unfamiliar with them, basically each earmuff has a microphone built-in.

This “Listens” to the background noise and gets rid of it. Because there is less background noise, what you are listening to sounds clearer, and does not need to be played as loudly.

The lower volume protects your ears as you can listen to your music, movie, etc. at a lower volume and this means less damage. It will still sound a lot better than before!

These are great in situations like planes, trains or if someone else is watching a TV. They are not so useful in situations like a shooting range or where there are very loud random noises.

Noise-canceling headphones come in a range of prices, from around ten to three hundred dollars. Even cheap pairs can make listening sound a lot better.

I suffer from Tinnitus and use these so that I can keep the volume lower and not make my hearing worse. I have a pair at the moment that cost fifty dollars and while not perfect, are still great. They are small ear buds for traveling, and I have had them now for over eighteen months. So I consider them a good investment

To find out more, and exactly how they work, read the rest of this article!

Noise Reduction Rating (NNR) – Headphone Effectiveness

When you wear headphones and earplugs, they will always block out some sounds. Noise-canceling ear plugs block noise differently to most other types of earplug or ear defenders. However, they will still have cups that go over the ears, or plugs which go into the ears.

These block sound, which basically means that they are stopping sound by merely blocking your ears. This is still important for noise-canceling earplugs. Any noise blocked means lower volume music, which you can still enjoy hearing no background sounds.

The amount of noise blocked passively is measured in NNR (the Noise Reduction Rating). One point of NNR is equal to one decibel (dB), so a headset with an NNR of 10 will reduce the background noise by approximately 10dB.

Headsets and earplugs usually have an NNR of between 5 and 30dB. Noise-canceling headsets will have a passive NNR at the lower end of the scale. However because of the active noise cancellation, the effective NNR will be much higher.

What To Look For – Noise Canceling Ear Plugs

When you are looking to buy some noise-canceling headphones, there are essentially four things that you need to consider when making your choice. These are (in order of importance)

• Sound Quality – Any set of headphones is only as good as the quality of sound they produce
• Noise Cancelling – The better the earpieces are at canceling the outside sounds, the better the noise-canceling headset will be
• Comfort – Headsets are usually worn for a long-ish period, so the headset needs to be comfortable
• Battery Life – You want the headset to work for several hours before it needs recharging. It only applies to wireless models. When the battery is discharged, you can still use the headset, but there will be no active noise cancellation.

All the models recommended in this article fit the above four criteria well.

When you are out and about, you often see people wearing noise-canceling headphones. These work fantastically on the street, train, or busses. They reduce the sounds that would typically get into the ears, meaning that you can listen to your music, videos, or audiobooks at a much-reduced volume, and you do not get so much of the annoying background noise.

The idea of noise-canceling headphones has been around for many years. The idea was first thought of by Dr. Bose, of the Bose corporation, on a flight in 1978. It took approximately ten million dollars and nine years of development for these to finally be produced, and available for sale.

The first of these headsets were expensive, very expensive, and they were only used by pilots who needed something like this to improve the hearing in the cockpit when talking to flight control. A few years later, some business class passengers on American airlines were given these to use on commercial flights. These people then wanted to buy their own personal headsets, which at the time were not available.

By the 1990s, some commercially available noise-canceling headsets were available. However, these still had quite a considerable price tag. Fast forward to today, and cheap noise-canceling headphones can be purchased from China for as little as ten dollars, and a top of the range set can be had for as little as $300. A reasonably good pair will set you back about $50.

How Do Noise-Canceling Headsets Work?

Sound is a wave, and if two separate sounds are made, then they combine into a single wave that does not increase in volume, you just hear twice as much sound. As more and more sound is made, then you hear more sound, but it is not louder.

Think of twenty people all talking. The volume is the same as talking, but all the combined sound waves make no sense. This is called “Constructive interference.”

But what happens if you make the exact opposite of a sound wave? The peaks and the troughs cancel each other out. This would lead to silence, or almost silence. This is precisely what sound-canceling headphones do. This process is known as “Destructive Interference.”

Noise-canceling headphones have microphones on each ear. These record the sound from the outside, then immediately play the exact opposite waves into the speaker with the music you are listening to. The sound wave of the outside world is canceled out by its reverse wave, leaving just the clear sound wave from the music, or whatever you are listening to being heard by your ears.

Noise-canceling headphones do not cancel every sound, however. They are better at consistent noises like trains, TVs, etc. Talking or loud car horns can be difficult to cancel even though they are usually significantly reduced in volume.

So using noise-canceling headphones will significantly improve your listening pleasure, as the sound will be clearer. You can protect your ears as you can get the same sound at a reduced volume.

Need To Cancel Irregular Noises Like A Gunshot?

As mentioned above, noise-canceling is excellent for regular sounds like plane noise, but not so good at loud irregular noises. For example, on a shooting range they would not be a lot of use at all. A gunshot is too loud to be easily masked and is entirely irregular.

For this situation, you would be better off with some ear muffs that passively block the ears with padding, etc. You can get them with built-in Bluetooth for music, etc., or you can wear earbuds or similar under the muffs. (Even noise-canceling earbuds – for two levels of noise reduction).

Please Note: Just because an ear defender is marked, for example, "Gunshot" - it will still cover other things, like "explosions"