Just as one would not think of connecting small budget speakers to a high end Hi-Fi system, a similar story can be said when choosing when choosing headphones for a portable music player. Those who are serious about their the quality of the actual player, the codec's it uses and the best codec settings for ripping their CDs tend to be serious about the headphones to both drown out background noise as well as offer the best sound quality.
Up until now, noise-cancelling headphones were believed to be the best solution for cutting out background noise, however a recent study performed by Shure units shows that noise-cancelling headphones end up with worse results than noise-isolating headphones, allowing 10dB to 27dB more noise though with even the best noise-cancelling headphones tested.
In the test, the best performing noise-isolating headphones tested were E3c with foam sleeves at 93% noise reduction. However the best pair of noise-isolating headphones reduced noise by only 77%. Not only did the noise-cancelling headphones perform worse, but also require batteries and are more bulky compared the noise-isolating headphones.
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A recent study compared the performance of Shure sound isolating earphones against three models of noise-canceling headphones and found that the sound isolating design was more effective at reducing the level of a broadband noise signal. The tests were conducted in accordance with recognized industry standards for measuring the noise attenuation capabilities of hearing protection devices and noise-canceling headphones. The study results revealed that the E3c with foam sleeves was the best performer among the Shure units tested, as it reduced noise by 10 - 27 decibels more than even the best-performing noise-canceling model tested. Further, the data indicated that all of the Shure model variations tested provided greater overall noise reduction at the lower frequencies where noise-canceling models are reputed to be most effective. Shure analyzed the test data and concluded that the difference in performance between sound isolating earphones and noise-canceling headphones is even greater than previously thought. "We found that the sound isolating earphones provided greater overall noise reduction than the noise-canceling models tested," explained Chris Lyons, Manager, Portfolio Planning, Shure Personal Audio. "When we converted the study's decibel performance numbers into percentage figures, it became abundantly clear to us just how significant the performance differences are. The E3c earphones with foam sleeves reduced overall noise by 93%, far surpassing even the best-performing noise-canceling model in the test, which reduced noise by only 77%." Read the full article here. |
I find it interesting to see people talking about encoding their CDs in rather high bitrates (192kbps), picky about the codec and sound quality only to find that they mainly listen to their music in noisy places (on the bus, public area, etc) with a basic pair of earphones! Then again, the last thing consumers often think about when making a new portable player purchase is to get a decent pair of headphones rather than assume the included earphones are fine. However, another likely reason consumers stick with earphones is that a large pair of headphones does kind of defeat the purpose in choosing a sleek compact MP3 player. :p
Source: Designtechnica News
