[hwillis]

> Imagine sliding glass shower doors, but with a bigger gap between panes for airflow. It also claims 10dB reduction, and doesn’t need a computer :)

Note that this is ~50% reduction in volume, roughly the difference between a loud and normal conversation. Noise cancelling headphones are more like 75%-87%, the difference between a loud conversation and a whisper.

[qznc]

Noise cancelling tech only cancels certain sounds though. Traffic noise works. Voices are not cancelled at all by mine.

[hwillis]

Not all headphones are the same, and for higher frequency, quickly-changing sounds like voices, having some extra processing speed really helps. Better microphones and transducers also make a much larger difference than you'd think.

Acoustic cancellation is used at the room scale to remove vibrations from sensitive scientific experiments. Its not the tech that only works on certain sounds, its the implementations.