Noise Cancelling Headphones Will Save your Ears
This article will explain what noise cancelling headphones are, and the benefits associated with using them instead of standard headphones.
In a nutshell, noise cancelling headphones are specially designed headphones with the aim of blocking out external noises to improve the clarity and quality of your listening experience.
Whenever your ears are exposed to a really loud sound, your overall hearing decreases a little. This hearing loss is usually temporary, and you regain your normal hearing after a short period of time. But repeated exposure to high volumes of loud music and sound is likely to reduce your hearing ability for good.
That’s why it’s generally a bad idea to crank up the volume on your headphones just so you can hear properly. You run the risk of suffering long-term hearing problems.
Noise cancelling headphones solve this problem by “cancelling out” external noises so you are able to hear every little detail in your music and sound without having to crank up to full volume. This enables you to listen comfortably at lower volumes, even in loud environments.
Using noise cancelling headphones can really save your hearing in the long term. They are popular for use on transport such as buses, cars, and planes because they eliminate the background noise of engines to allow you to listen in blissful silence. Noise cancelling headphones are also great for an immersive computer gaming experience on your PC or home console.
So if you’re looking at purchasing some headphones for your computer, mp3 player, television, or whatever it may be, consider getting some noise cancelling headhpones for a better listening experience.
Julien David
http://www.articlesbase.com/electronics-articles/noise-cancelling-headphones-will-save-your-ears-61658.html
March 15th, 2010 at 12:30 pm
What headphones should I buy for:?
I basically need a headphone guru to steer me in the optimal direction, because whatever headphones I purchase I will be using them alot, and I mean alot~
I’ll take anythign you got, 1 pair, top 3 pairs, 5 pairs, etc.. different price levels, different brands, different focused goal types, whatever you wanna give me I will take it~
Background: Music is incredibly important to me, alot of my life experiences and situations are incredibly connected to my love and listening of music. Regarding this I will also be on the go a ton, and I don’t mean like me traveling in planes and cars, I mean backpacking, traveling on foot a lot.
Having said this:
To keep things simple, I’ll say what I need considered in bullet form:
First, Type/General Direction: I don’t want buds or pieces. I want headphones that cover my ears completely, ya know the big ones.
Sound Quality, headphones of high high sound quality are paramount to me, for me to feel the emotion of the music the way I treasure.
Durability, as stated I will be rougin’ it to an extent, so I need very durable headphones.
Comfortability, I will be using them alot and I want to have comfortable headphones, headphones that I won’t be hurting me after hours and hours of listening.
Health, I want these headphones to do as little long-term damage to my hearing as possible, if any of course.
Battery Life, not gonna lie with my lifestyles the longer battery life the better off I am.
Noise Canceling, it’s weird to actually describe my "criteria" for NC, although I do consider it a bonus to my phones, I consider it an important bonus that will definitely be worth the extra bucks, and the shed for the other factors, but not to an extent that I want to shed tons of sound quality for tons of noise canceling, I hope you get what I’m saying. I mean when I’m on a train and I wanna chill out I would love my headphones to cancel out my surroundings as much as possible, but not to the extent that on that train all I hear is semi-good sound quality.
Price, I’m not gonna lie I’m not for spending money when I can save, but seeing how important this is to me I will be willing to shed the bucks, I’m just saying I’m not the kind of person will go miles and miles for that extra inch. (In case your like what is his range, it’s really more about the quality of product, I wound’t mind if you showed me one at this price level and one at this price level, but I’m not gonna front I expect it to easily exceed $100 most likely, prob going easily over the $200 mark, my point is, the price, I can handle it~)
Finally design/look, I care about this as little as possible compared to the others, but hey if one is cooler than the other and their the same basically, yeah I’d prefer that one.
Extending Variables and accessories: What do I mean? Is it corded, is it wireless? Those kind of things, I don’t really care, as long as the aforementioned points are met to their best then I don’t care about accessories and if it’s corded or wireless, etc…
However obviously, if there are corded options I’d rather had a 6.5 ft cord over 3.3 ft cord, but once again not at the sacrifice of more significant criteria.
Or brand, I don’t care about the brand, I care about the product, so please don’t be biased.
Smart abilities, I read like some headphones have capabilities where for example on a NC headphone you can say if you want Noise Canceling or not, stuff like that would be great but not necessary.
Like I said I need a headphone guru to really help me out here and give me the perfect headphones for my future ventures.
-If you actually read everything, thank you. And if you actually considered everything thank you even more.
-This is really important to me and this is not my field of expertise so I am really asking for your guys help, I appreciate it so much.
March 15th, 2010 at 5:32 pm
Sorry if this isn’t as extensive as you wanted but… look these up. Very high quality.
Boze
Beats by Dre
Skull Candy Full Metal Jacket
Those are very good ones. Go to the websites and they can provide all the info you’re looking for
References :
March 15th, 2010 at 5:34 pm
Closed or open refers to the design of the headphone. Closed headphones will not leak sound and will let you listen to music without bothering others. They also do a better job of isolating you from outside noise when compared to an open design. Open headphones let sound travel in and out of the headphones and may distract those around you. Generally better sounding than closed pair.
CLOSED:
beyerdynamic
http://www.amazon.com/Beyerdynamic-Pro-80-Closed-Studio-Headphones/dp/B0016MNAAI/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1250835918&sr=8-1
AKG
http://www.amazon.com/AKG-Acoustics-Closed-Back-Stereo-Headphones/dp/B0016MOC28/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1250831924&sr=1-2
Audio Technica
http://www.amazon.com/Technica-ATH-A700-Closed-Back-Dynamic-Headphones/dp/B000E9VKUQ/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1250836085&sr=1-1
OPEN:
Sennheiser
http://www.amazon.com/Sennheiser-HD555-HD-555-Audiophile-Headphones/dp/B0001FTVDQ/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1250830523&sr=8-3
AKG
http://www.amazon.com/AKG-K-701-WHITE-HEADPHONES/dp/tech-data/B000EBBJ6Y/ref=de_a_smtd
beyerdynamic
http://www.amazon.com/beyerdynamic-DT-440-Premium-Headphones/dp/B000Y04OSU/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1250831148&sr=8-4
All of the headphones I listed have a durable construction but are not necessarily rugged. They were designed to have wonderful sound quality, not rough it in the wilderness. The elements (dust and water) will not treat them kindly. To combat this, I recommend you buy some sort of case for them. I know it’s a pain to carry extra things around for backpacking but the protection is well worth the inconvenience. A case from here (http://www.pelican.com/) would suit you nicely if you can find the right size.
Also, make sure you thoroughly read the reviews to see how well they stand up to movement. Quite a few cans out there will produce sound when the cord is bumped, while moving, etc.
I’m going to have to disagree with the above answerer’s recommendations. The Skullcandies mentioned are earbuds, not over-the-ear headphones. And this review sums up my view (and the audio community’s view) on both Bose and Monster Beats by Dr. Dre: http://www.amazon.com/review/R16ZHWH3D1BJNQ/ref=cm_cr_dp_cmt?ie=UTF8&ASIN=B001DD55OE&nodeID=172282#wasThisHelpful
A quote from it that I would like to highlight – "These are a great set of headphones for the unaware and misguided, but for those who truly appreciate sound, your money is spent better elsewhere."
An article on Bose just for kicks:
http://speakchic.com/2009/01/the-myth-of-bose/
To finish off my answer, I recommend you post this same question here (http://www.head-fi.org/forums/f4/ ). They know a lot more about headphones then me and will likely give a much better answer in the end. There’s even a good chance they’ll disagree with every option I’ve given you. The sticky threads at the top of the page are excellent sources of info.
One more thing, if at all possible, listen to and compare the headphones you want to buy. People have different ears and what sounds good to someone else might not necessarily sound good to you.
EDIT:
I feel like adding more. A good set of headphones won’t necessarily guarantee good sound. Other factors come into play as well. The source of the sound (CD player, MP3 player, home audio equipment, etc.) will affect how it sounds. The quality of the music will affect the sound. And I don’t mean whether or not the band is good, I’m talking about the files themselves. A low bitrate MP3 will sound horrid on the options I suggested. You’ll need 256 kbps + when dealing with MP3s, FLAC would be the best option. If you don’t know what I’m talking about in regards to the file types, look around on the forum I suggested or ask them to explain it to you. This answer will be even more long-winded if I go any further into file quality.
You may or may not need to purchase a portable amp to power your headphones. Wherever you’re playing the music from might not be powerful enough to effectively drive the headphone drivers. An amp should also add some battery life by taking some of the strain off of the battery in your MP3/CD player. I don’t know much in this field because I’ve never had to purchase one, so I’m not going to suggest anything, just give you generals.
Looking back on my suggestions, I actually think you should go for one of the cheaper pairs. The more expensive ones will accentuate every flaw in the music and might actually make things sound worse. They reproduce the music so well that it will sound bad if your music isn’t up to snuff (see FLAC suggestion).
References :