Sometimes you just want to get away from it all—to escape the din of a busy office, or the roar of a plane, and enjoy your favorite album or podcast. Or maybe you just want the world around you to be a little quieter so you can concentrate or relax. Noise-canceling headphones aim to provide just such an aural refuge. I took a look at five models marketed as premium noise-canceling solutions to see if they live up to their hype (and price tags).
Noise-canceling tech
Headphones can use two approaches to reducing the amount of external noise that makes its way to your ears: passive noise isolation and active noise reduction. Passive noise isolation involves physically blocking noise from reaching your ears. Traditionally, this has been accomplished using larger earpieces and earpads that completely surround your ears (over-ear, or circumaural, designs) or at least cover your ears (on-ear, or supra-aural, designs). Recently, many people have turned instead to in-ear-canal headphones (canalphones), which fit deep in your ear canals like earplugs. (Check out our in-ear-canal headphone primer for more details.)
Active noise reduction, on the other hand, aims to reduce the level of audible noise via technology. One or more microphones built into the headphones sample external noise, and the circuitry inside immediately pumps an inverse audio signal through the headphones (along with whatever audio you're listening to). In theory, this inverse audio signal cancels out the external noise—thus the name of the technology.
In reality, there are limits to how effectively this circuitry can counteract external noise. For example, while noise-canceling technology is generally effective at blocking continuous, low-frequency audio, such as a jet's engines or the hum of a room full of computers, its less capable when it comes to higher frequencies and intermittent noise. (See our previous roundup of noise-canceling models for more on these limitations.)
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