How Passive Noise Canceling Headphones Work

Passive noise canceling headphones basically mimic what you do when you put your hands over your ears, or put in a set of ear plugs. In essence, headphones that use passive noise cancellation will include lots of padding and are loaded with sound absorbing material which blocks noise naturally. Or, they do the same thing that earplugs dothey fit right into your ear canal and seal it off from any outside noise.

Any headphones in fact can be said to use passive Noise cancellation, however certain headphones are made for it more than others.


Supra-aural Headphones


Supra-aural headphones, which are headphones which are placed ON your ear (as compared to around or in it) are probably the least effective for sound cancellation. They are characteristically small, light weight, and low density, meaning that there is not enough substance to block any external, ambient noise from entering a person's ear. Moreover, since they only sit on the ear, they leave a great deal of space for external noise to travel around them and find its way into ear canal.

Very rarely will you ever come across professional, top quality supra-aural headphones, since they really are unable to provide the noise canceling effect that circumaural or in-ear headphones can. Supra-aural headphones are light, uncomplicated and cheap to supply, which means that you are likely to generally see them being targeted towards customers that arent exceedingly concerned with headphone quality, but are just looking for base functionality.

For instance, a great number of computer or video game headsets are often supra-aural. Because they are light weight they are comfortable for the lengthy use which computer users and gamers need them for. Moreover, most of these people are probably not so interested in the audio qualitythey will be most often utilised for vocal communication, where clarity is king and little else actually matters.


Circumaural Headphones

Circumaural (around ear) Headphones are often significantly better for noise cancellation. They are much larger, so as a result they can contain more noise blocking material that produces an even better buffer to protect against outside noise. Moreover, since they wholly enclose a person's ear, they are able to block it off from any sort of external noise that might potentially slide in. However, this is assuming that a person's headphones are produced well so they fit well. If they're shoddily constructed, outside noise may possibly still get inside.

Shures SRH 840 headphones are really well made for passive noise cancelation. Shure built the ear pads out of dense memory foam, which along with offering superior sound isolation also makes these headphones feel like you could take a nap in them.


In-Ear Headphones Ear Buds and Ear Canal Headphones

In-ear headphones can be found in 2 variations, earbuds and and ear canal headphones. Earbuds sit slightly inside your ear and they don't result in a very good seal, which means they are not very good at noise cancelling. They are usually consumer targeted, so their quality of sound is generally not great.

Ear canal headphones, on the other hand, almost entirely seal off the ear to outside sound and produce a straight path from the headphone to the ear canal. Most professional Ear buds or Noise canceling earbuds are in fact ear canal headphones.