noise cancelling stand alone unit

[admin_exported]

hi chaps - would anyone have any knowledge of a stand alone noise cancelling unit that you can plug an existing pair of good quality earphones in to? - i have a pair of ultimate ears superfi 5 pro's & don't want to replace them - when using them on a plane i still get the background engine noise - surely someone makes a noise cancelling box you can plug your earphones in to in between your ipod?

it'd be great if someone has any info!

cheers,

dave.

 

[Andrew Everard]

Can't think of one, and it'd be tricky to do.

The whole point of noise-cancellers is that they have microphones on the earpieces to take in the sound at that point and generate opposite phase sound tailored to the noise that ear is experiencing.

 

[Anonymous]

Necro bump.

I have some old JVC noise cancelling headphones. When they broke I opened them up to try to repair them. Unfortunately being on a boat I had limited resources and I messed one of the soldered connections. So I now have a mono noise cancelling circuit.

I wondered if I could use the circuit to cancel out cabin noise in my van.

But, as Andrew points out, headphones have the mic close to the speaker.

I wonder, if I wire in a mic and speaker close together, will the sound cancelling still work, or does it need to be close to the ear?

I will try this out if I find the parts to do it with again and report back.

It should be possible because I've heard BMW are experimenting with noise cancelling on thier cars. Did I hear that right...

Other than that I suppose sound deadening sponge can be fitted on the ceiling like on the underside of tables in resturants.

It's a bit frustrating because there are reasonably prices quality sounding headphones and there are reasonably priced noise cancelling headphones. But what's frustrating is that, if you want them to be portable(and further combinable with ear defenders) then you'll want the in-the-ear type. That means you get flimsey cables that break on you after less than a years use (mine broke in 6 months). That's one thing to happen with a cheap pair of headphones but entirely another when it happens to a £300 pair.

So needing the noise cancelling really cuts down on options. It's a shame nobody's figure out how to do a standalone version, it's possible but never been done. In fact, back this thread up as evidence of prior art, there's a gap in the market for a standalone unit that doubles as ear defenders over the in-ear headphones you want to use.

-j