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Headphone - Noise Cancelling or Not?
- Thread starter buffoon38
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No, certainly no "Noise cancelling" crap for that.
Spend the same amount of money on some good non-noisecancelling and the quality will be much better. Hell, spend half of what you wanted to spend on the noisecancelling ones and you will get better quality.
Personally, I prefer closed headphones for monitoring, but I think that comes from working out in the field, because when I'm home and listening to music I do like my open-back PS1s (grados, if you're wondering).
So spent the money on something you need: Good quality monitoring, instead of spending your money on something you don't need: distortion and imprecision-inducing noise cancellation.
Spend the same amount of money on some good non-noisecancelling and the quality will be much better. Hell, spend half of what you wanted to spend on the noisecancelling ones and you will get better quality.
Personally, I prefer closed headphones for monitoring, but I think that comes from working out in the field, because when I'm home and listening to music I do like my open-back PS1s (grados, if you're wondering).
So spent the money on something you need: Good quality monitoring, instead of spending your money on something you don't need: distortion and imprecision-inducing noise cancellation.
if you don't want outside noise, get noise rejection, not canceling.
They way canceling works is it introduces the inverse of the outside noise back into your ears, so the the noise is then 180 degrees out of phase. The issue is, when introducing that noise it's also going to make some of what you are wanting to hear out of phase as well.
They way canceling works is it introduces the inverse of the outside noise back into your ears, so the the noise is then 180 degrees out of phase. The issue is, when introducing that noise it's also going to make some of what you are wanting to hear out of phase as well.
Just invest in some good headphones. My Ultrasone HFI-550s block out a lot of noise (my roommate has to tap me on the shoulder if he wants to talk to me when I'm listening to music haha)
The noise cancelling crap is just for consumers so they can compliment their 80 million gigapixel cameraphone and their glossy fisher price "my first LCD" cinema display.
... rant over, sorry.
The noise cancelling crap is just for consumers so they can compliment their 80 million gigapixel cameraphone and their glossy fisher price "my first LCD" cinema display.
... rant over, sorry.
While ANR may not be needed or even suitable for many applications (such as the one the OP is requiring), calling it "consumer crap" (paraphrasing) demonstrates a lack of understanding of the true need and value of it in many applications, many of which are more critical than digital audio.
Any field where a constant noise pressure across a definable (and relatively narrow) frequency range is a prime candidate. Having spent most of my professional life wearing crappy headphones (long before ANR) and needing to crank the volume up above the ambient levels for extended periods, I get to spend my resulting disability payments on sets that offer ANR.
What's filtered down to the consumer-grade 'phones is just that: filtered down after many years in higher-level applications, the recording industry not necessarily being one of them.
If your studio is so noisy that you need noise cancelling headphones then you have serious problems. One would hope your recording environment is quiet.
What you may want are "closed" headphones. These are designed to keep the sound inside the headphones from getting out and into an open mic.
Oh, I see, just because we don't go "Oh, it's trickled down, then it can't be consumer crappola" I'm missing your point entirely. That's good to know
You're saying that it's not consumer crap because it trickled down from high-end uses.
I just happen to think that what it has trickled down to is consumer crap and that it has no place in this context. Feel free to disagree or feel that we shouldn't bash this sort of thing because "It has it's uses in higher-end applications", but that doesn't really change anything about the consumer crappola you can buy and what it would be in this context.
Speaking of context. You continue to talk about "higher end" stuff than audio editing. I'm curious as to what you consider higher end than that. In this context, it would have to mean somewhere were even higher fidelity and precision were needed, but I know you're talking something completely different, and I bet, quite interesting (no, not sarcasm). It may be more expensive and such, and more important (protection is important), but "higher end"?
Please read my first post, I thought I stated it clearly, but I'll try again.
ANR is not in & of itself a consumer technology. The technology has trickled down to consumer products which may or may not be "crap," but were never intended nor sold for professional audio applications. They don't claim it, and I didn't suggest it. That being said, generically calling an ANR-enabled piece of equipment "crap" is incorrect, and the worst kind of snobbery.
I agreed with the OP not needing ANR, for the uses they require. Point of fact, I'd be willing to bet there's not a single studio-quality set of phones that do use it. Completely improper application.
There's more to professional audio needs than the music/film industry, where background levels can be dangerously high, and faithful reproduction--of a limited frequency range, granted--is mission-critical, not to mention a literal matter of life & death. In general, we're talking the military, scientific, and aviation realms. That's what ANR was primarily developed for. Once again, not for the OP's purpose.
ANR is not in & of itself a consumer technology. The technology has trickled down to consumer products which may or may not be "crap," but were never intended nor sold for professional audio applications. They don't claim it, and I didn't suggest it. That being said, generically calling an ANR-enabled piece of equipment "crap" is incorrect, and the worst kind of snobbery.
I agreed with the OP not needing ANR, for the uses they require. Point of fact, I'd be willing to bet there's not a single studio-quality set of phones that do use it. Completely improper application.
There's more to professional audio needs than the music/film industry, where background levels can be dangerously high, and faithful reproduction--of a limited frequency range, granted--is mission-critical, not to mention a literal matter of life & death. In general, we're talking the military, scientific, and aviation realms. That's what ANR was primarily developed for. Once again, not for the OP's purpose.
Oh, don't worry, I have read it. One time was enough. Especially considering you more or less repeated yourself.
Noone is saying so is you pretending that we are saying that.
No, but you're trying to make believe that we are not talking about ANR in the context of headphones for monitoring
Sure
Are we not talking about headphones here? Are we not talking about headphones with a specific purpose here? Oh, yes we are, and in this context, headphones with ANR is consumer crappola whether you like it or not, and no matter how many ear protection "muffs" with ANR you can find for people working in other industries. Everyone but you are talking headphones. Now, call that snobbery all you want, but the reality is that you focus on the ANR tech, where we focus on the headphones, what is avaliable in the market, and for a very specific purpose. ANR is propable used in hearing aids and so on, but that has absolutely no bearing on anything in this thread.
Yes, and as we said, headphones with ANR is consumer crap that has no place in a pro or semi-pro monitor setting.
Ah, so this is why you go off. You don't get that when we talk "pro audio" we also talk "high fidelity" (in the original sense of the term) and especially "precision", "frequency range" and so on. A pilot does not need most of those things. Not at all.
Again, even though those fields are very much respectable, it has nothing to do with "pro audio" even those professionals use the cans that were built by engineers.
And it STILL doesn't mean that ANR headphones aren't crap. They are. Even if pilots use headphones with ANR in them.
EDIT/ADD:
You know why we say those things are crap? Well, they are because the active noise reduction will not only remove or alter the same frequencies from what you play back than from the exterior, it will also influence other frequncies, often result in a general slow response, and I have yet to hear a headphone with ANR with a fast attack - especially compared to similar priced non-ANR headphones. They are crap, because they're useless for anything where precision, flat frequency response, attack and "cleanness" (yes, it's a term I coined for your benefit) matters.
Apparently you insist on the last word, so you've got it. Congrats on the threadjack.
Wow, there really are nothing like playing a victim when it turns out you don't have a leg to stand, now is there?
Let me redirect you to the post that jacked this thread:
https://forums.macrumors.com/posts/7471674/
Just in case you were wondering, I have sennheiser PXC 450's. They're the top of the range senns with Noise Cancelling and I absolutely love them. The quality is great and when I need to take a bus or a plane or just get away from the noise of the outside world they work wonders in that regard.