Using in-ear monitors with active noise-cancelling on the street
Using iem with ANC on the street
Hello!
I'd appreciate knowing how is it to go out on the street using an iem with ANC. Especially when you are on a sidewalk next to a heavy-traffic street or when you are on the subway for example. Does the ANC eliminate completely those types of loud sounds? Or they are still present but just not on the same level?
I ask this because I use IEM with foam ear tips but with no ANC. I feel that the foam ear tips normally makes a good seal and isolate conversations next to me or other sounds in my house. But when I go to the street in those places I mentioned the sounds are still somewhat present, although not at the same level as the music I hear. So I was thinking if I could achieve more isolation using for example a ANC iem.
Any insight would be much appreciated thank you!
Yes, it eliminates external sounds quite a bit better. No, nothing is going to completely remove them in an in-ear format.
As an aside, do you really want to totally eliminate all external sounds while out on the street? Some of those sounds, especially the loud ones, are kind of critical to your safety and maybe to the safety of others.
You are right. Lessening the sound of external noise on the street can be a risk. Maybe the sound of isolation I have right now is ideal and I should not be trying to
attenuateimprove more. But sometimes I don't enjoy listening to music while still hearing external sounds, so the solution should be to not listen to music in those types of situations I guess.I walk every day with AirPod Pros that have pretty good ANC (or at least much better than I expected when I got them). I do put extra effort into observing traffic when I need to cross the street without issue but the main situation where I will not use them is late at night in a city. Besides indicating I might have money to mug me for, I don’t want to be surprised by anybody sneaking up on me.
I use AirPods Pro at work, to focus better in an open office setup. With ANC and music, I basically don't hear any ambient noise or people talking around me. I'm overall very impressed with them. They sound great for earbuds (not as good as my Sony MDR studio headphones, but surprisingly close, and far better than any earbuds I've used before) and the ANC just feels like magic, since I've never had noise canceling before.
I also use them when I'm in unexpectedly loud environments, like with an uncomfortably loud PA system or something. Obviously they're not a safe replacement for real ear protection (and I do have concert earplugs I wear for such events) but they're much better than having nothing.
I've also used them on planes; they suppress most of the engine noise and I was able to play a game on my Nintendo Switch.
In fact I went entirely the other direction and got myself one of those overpriced OpenShokz because they leave the ears completely open.
When I do need full focus on the headset, I can always just use some earplugs. But under normal use I hear everything.
I have one too, it's great for biking as it allows me to be aware of the traffic and it's legal since it doesn't cover the ears.
The con is that the sound is good enough for podcasts or calls but terrible for music.
Still, for me it's worth it.
I've used IEMs exclusively for about a decade when out and about in a busy city, and I was using those Comply foam tips for most of it as well.
The benefits of good ANC will be lessened coming from that kind of setup but not insignificant. Especially good ANC, like what Sony or Bose or Apple have going on.
I was never particularly bothered with the amount of sound leakage I got with IEMs before but the ANC really does cut away at what is left. With good enough isolation from the eartip seal, it will block almost all outside sound without affecting the music quality (other than the limitations of the Bluetooth format).
I think the only things that get through are loud sounds that don't fit the noise patterns that ANC filters out, like loud crashes or bangs. But you probably want to hear those.
I don't know about Bose or Apple, I imagine they also do this, but Sony allows you to set between 20 levels of ANC to go from full blocking to allowing everything in. By default, it sets being out and about ANC level to about mid level to allow for traffic sounds when it detects you're out and about.
It really depends on the manufacturer. Bose has pioneered the technology and you really hear the difference, as they're the only headphones I've worn that completely cancel your surroundings. It's extreme in the beginning, because you're not used to not hear anything. It's complete silence.
Other manufacturers dampen the surroundings very well, and I'm currently wearing TW3 from Sennheiser. They do an okay job at cancelling loud noises, but you're in no way cut off completely from your surroundings as my old QC15 did (not in ear btw). They also lose a lot of bass whem activated, so.I often just go and deactivate it.
So why didn't I get Bose in ears? They look ugly and have been discontinued as far as I know. You can't get them on their site anymore, at least when I was looking for new in ears.
Edit
The biggest advantage of this function is that you don't hear music as loud as you would otherwise, because you don't have to account for the surroundings. You have a constant musoc level that doesn't harm your ears.
For reference I used to live in a large city where I would walk everywhere, and I used the first gen apple airpods pro, which have pretty decent ANC. Overall I would say 80% of background noise is eliminated mostly in the lower frequencies. Voices and sounds nearest to you will be present, but fairly quiet. Sharp loud and sudden noises will be apparent.
Most sounds are almost completely ignored if music is playing at a reasonable volume with ANC on. I usually found this pretty disorienting since navigating a large city on foot uses hearing more than you think, and of course is a safety risk.
If you are looking for ANC earbuds and will mainly be using these when out and about, I would say the best feature to have is the ability to quickly turn the ANC on and off. Apple's "Transparency mode" was great for this, and can be bound to a shortcut that is actioned by touch the earbuds themselves. I would say this is a nice advantage over passive noise cancelling.
I use Nothing Ear 1, which has some low-level ANC. It works great at home to remove background traffic buzz from the street, aircon hum, or constant noises like that. But for the metro clanking and banging, loud talking, individual car sounds nearby, etc, it has very little effect. I only really listen to podcasts, and it makes them easier to hear at lower volume, but the loud background noises are still present. It's a funny sensation to describe, kind of like a pressure change.
The ANC on my earbuds (not IEMs) can knock out enough of the traffic sound to make it peaceful to walk by busy roads but not enough that I feel like I'm in danger of not hearing things I need to hear. The weird thing is that it's so good at dealing with loud noises that when some boy racer with a "performance" exhaust comes past, the ANC mostly kills the sound going to my ears but my body still notices it. I 'hear' the bass of the car in my chest but not in my ears. It's a very odd sensation.
I also have some noise-isolating earbuds designed for hearing protection (ISOTunes) and they let through slightly more sound, but it's much flatter. It's hard to describe, really. The ISOTunes just turn the volume down on everything fairly equally. ANC has a more variable effect over different frequencies. I wouldn't wear the ISOTunes for audio quality though - they're great for when I'm working in noisy environments but they don't sound so nice.