how does active noise cancellation works and is it more harmful to your ears than normal headphones or earphones
In: Technology
No, it’s not harmful. Noise cancelling headphones just play a tone that cancels out the noise around you. How does it work?
Picture a sound wave, with peaks and valleys, coming out of a speaker. Now add a second speaker playing the exact same sound. If the peaks of the first sound wave line up with the peaks of the second sound wave, the overall sound gets louder. If the peaks of the first wave line up with the valleys of the second sound wave, they cancel each other out.
Noise cancelling headphones have a microphone to “hear” the sound around you. They take what they “hear” and produce a sound that’s the same, but shifted, so the peaks line up with the valleys. This cancels out the sound around you.
Many people with normal headphones will crank them really loud to drown out the noise around them. This can damage your hearing. With noise-cancelling headphones, people don’t feel the need to crank them because there’s hardly any outside noise. No cranking means less damage to your ears, so noise-cancelling headphones can actually be beneficial. 🙂
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