Noise cancelling headphones

I've been curious about these and was thinking about getting some for work. At work i scan documents all day on this old microfiche reader and the fans on it are kind of loud. This sits on my left side at about chest level so i'm worried that maybe my left ear will start losing some of those frequencies or something.

So, with a constant fan drone like that, would noise cancelling headphones save my hearing? i'd rather not do ear plugs, i hear they can encourage infections sometimes that harm hearing.

i bought the Bose quiet comfort twos once, and they were by far the nicest quality earphones ive heard in my life, the bass was sweet as fuck and the noise cancelation was awesome, you could sit above the engines on a double decker bus, and just turn them on with no music and all you heard was a humming, instead of the usual roaring.

they were however, insanely expensive at 250 quid.

they are the only ones i have had experience with, the ec series are better at blocking out noise but they are in ear plugs.

correct me if im wrong but inst it possible that certain kinds of experimental or other music usuing unusual frequencies and phasing can be altered by the use of audio canceling headphones. It is my understand that many noise canceling headphones pick up the ambient noise in the room and rechannel it into the sound or music with an inverted phase in order to cancel out the background noise. Wouldn't this cause some music to sound different or altered? Or would you have to be listening to a literal recording of the background ambiance you are sitting in to get the effect im talking about?

all my music sounded absolutely fine/amazing , but i despise ambience so i dont really know.

paid $200 for some sony's great head phones but noise cancelling is more annoying than helpful :(

  AlexPallas said:

paid $200 for some sony's great head phones but noise cancelling is more annoying than helpful :(

why is that?

  Ghostbusters III said:

Or would you have to be listening to a literal recording of the background ambiance you are sitting in to get the effect im talking about?

yeah, they pretty much just feed the sound from outside, inverted.. so it'll do nothing to the music you listen to.

  Adjective said:

I've been curious about these and was thinking about getting some for work. At work i scan documents all day on this old microfiche reader and the fans on it are kind of loud. This sits on my left side at about chest level so i'm worried that maybe my left ear will start losing some of those frequencies or something.

 

So, with a constant fan drone like that, would noise cancelling headphones save my hearing? i'd rather not do ear plugs, i hear they can encourage infections sometimes that harm hearing.

imho, most noise cancelling headphones have shitty audio quality. I'd recommend sealed cans like the AKG 271's or the sennheiser 280 pro.

  felch said:

i bought the Bose quiet comfort twos once, and they were by far the nicest quality earphones ive heard in my life, the bass was sweet as fuck and the noise cancelation was awesome, you could sit above the engines on a double decker bus, and just turn them on with no music and all you heard was a humming, instead of the usual roaring.

 

they were however, insanely expensive at 250 quid.

 

they are the only ones i have had experience with, the ec series are better at blocking out noise but they are in ear plugs.

i have the bose currently and i 100% agree. they are excellent, and perfect for what you are describing; a constant annoying/droning noise.

  AlexPallas said:

paid $200 for some sony's great head phones but noise cancelling is more annoying than helpful :(

perhaps the sony's just sucked?

  acid1 said:

imho, most noise cancelling headphones have shitty audio quality. I'd recommend sealed cans like the AKG 271's or the sennheiser 280 pro.

the bose sound phenomenal.

see if you can find a bose dealer, and demo them. you will not be disappointed.

got mine as a gift for $300 USD.