Our Direct Sound Extreme Isolation headphones are passive noise reduction headphones. They reduce noise by a greater number of decibels and sound better than traditional active noise cancelation headphones. And, perhaps best of all, they are a great value for your money.

Noise reduction headphones are not the same as noise cancellation headphones. The Direct Sound Extreme Isolation Headphones are better classified as noise reduction headphones because they do not use electronics to actively cancel ambient noise. Instead, our headphones physically block sound by reflecting the sound away from your ears while enclosing your ears in our patented sound isolating ear cups. The result is a greater degree of sound isolation and superior sound quality for your music.

Why Noise Reduction Headphones Sound Better

Most noise cancelling headphones use electronics to “listen” to the sound around you so that they can produce an “opposite” sound wave to cancel the sound inside the ear cups. This is called active noise cancelation because the headphones are actively destroying incoming sound with a cancelling sound wave. For audiophiles like us, the major problem with this type of noise reduction is that the “cancelling” sound wave which is intended to block the ambient noise also destroys the music you are actually trying to listen to. There’s simply no way around it. Let’s take a simple sound frequency as an example. Suppose there is an ambient noise at 1000 Hz around you. So your active noise cancellation headphones produce a sound wave that blocks that frequency inside of your ear cups. But what if the music you are listening to also has a sound at 1000 Hz. That frequency in your music is then cancelled as well. So now you have cancelled sound you actually do want to hear.

The problem doesn’t stop there. The folks that make active noise cancellation headphones know this so they build their headphones to artificially boost certain sound frequencies in your music because they know that the noise cancellation electronics are going to be destroying those frequencies. Now your music is totally distorted from what the artists intended for you to hear and, instead, it sound like an approximation of what your headphones company wants you to hear. The end result is very unsatisfying.

There is yet another problem with active noise cancellation headphones. The “canceling” sound waves that they produce are not silent. If you put on a pair of active noise cancellation headphones and simply turn on the noise cancellation electronics you are going to hear a very disorienting, swooshing noise. This is the sound of the “canceling” sound waves inside of your ear cups. This swooshing, static noise does not go away when you start playing your music. So you are going to be hearing a distracting and annoying static noise in the background of EVERYTHING you listen to. This destroys the quality of your music and makes it sound like you are listening to an old record or a dubbed tape or something. You will not be getting the crystal clear audio that you could be getting.

Our Noise Reduction Headphones Are Crystal Clear

Our noise reduction headphones do not use electronics to block noise and, therefore, do not introduce any swooshing static noise into your music and they do not destroy any of the audio frequencies in your music. The result is crystal clear audio the way the artists intended for you to hear it.

Noise Reduction Headphones Block More Noise

Our noise reduction headphones block more noise and a wider range of sound frequencies than active noise cancellation headphones. The average set of active noise cancellation headphones blocks about 12 – 15 dB of noise. Even the really expensive, $300 active noise cancellation headphones only block about 17dB of noise. Our Direct Sound Extreme Isolation headphones block an average of 29 dB of sound. If that doesn’t seem like a big difference, keep in mind that something that is 10 dB louder is twice as loud. This means our headphones will block what sounds like twice as much noise. If you want to learn more about what a decibel is read our article What Is A Decibel? Or if you want to know more about what sound is you can read our article What Is Sound and How Hearing Works?

In addition to reducing sound be a greater number of decibels, our headphones block a wider range of sound as well. Active noise cancelation headphones are only effective at block consistent, rumbling noises like engine noise on an airplane. They do not do very well blockinging short bursts of noise like phones ringing or people talking. This is because the electronics in the headphones do not have enough time to calculate a “canceling” sound wave for these short bursts of noise.

Noise reduction headphones, on the other hand, are excellent for blocking snoring, talking, dogs barking and other types of short burst noises because they work be reflecting the sound away from your ears. Our headphones do not need to calculate anything, they instantly reflect the noise away from your ears.

So, in summary here is a list of reasons why our Noise Reduction Headphones are better than active noise cancellation headphones.

• Better sound quality for your music
• Blocks more decibels of sound
• Blocks a wider range of sound
• Effecive at block short bursts of sound like TVs, talking, dogs barking, etc.
• Do not require batteries
• More durable
• Better value for your money

So if you are looking for the best headphones that block the most noise, please take a look at our EX-29 Extreme Isolation Headphones. Or, if you want a more compact style of headphones which are great for traveling or studying, read more about our EX-25 Extreme Isolation Headphones.

There is a lot of confusion about how noise cancelation headphones work so we thought we should take a moment and answer a few questions about how they work and provide a little advice to anyone shopping for a good set of noise reduction headphones.

Active or Passive Noise Cancelation

There are two main types of headphones that block sound. Some headphones block sound by sampling the ambient noise with tiny microphones built into the headphones. Then an “equal but opposite” cancelation sound wave is generated inside of the ear cups to “cancel” the sound you hear. This technology is call active noise cancelation and is very effective at blocking consistent, rumbling or humming noises like the airplane engine noise you hear when flying or the sound of an air conditioner or fan. It is “active” because there are microphones and electronics actively trying to sample the ambient noise and then figure out how to cancel it before it reaches your ears. Active noise cancelation headphones tend to be fairly compact in size and some models sit on your ear rather than having the ear cups enclose or surround your ear. Active noise cancelation headphones always require batteries to run the electronics that cancel the sound. When the batteries die, so does the noise cancelation – and sometimes, depending on the set of headphones, you can’t hear any music at all if your headphone batteries die. Also, active noise cancelation headphones produce a hissy swoosh noise inside of the ear cups. This is the “canceling” sound wave. It makes your music sound like there is a hissing staic in the background which I hate. I like clear audio and active noise cancelation headphones do not really produce very clear sound.

The other type of noise blocking headphones are passive noise reduction or passive noise cancelation headphones. Passive noise cancelation headphones work by physically blocking the sound from reaching your ears. The ear cups have closed backs and totally enclose your ear. This style of headphones tend to be a bit bulkier than active noise cancelation headphones because the ear cups are packed with noise isolation foam and the ear cups need to be large enough to totally enclose your ears and protect them from sound. Passive noise reduction headphones like the Direct Sound Extreme Isolation Headphones are generally much better at blocking sound and also significantly less expensive. There has been a great deal of marketing hype around fancy headphones like the Bose Quiet Comfort headphones, but the truth is that the headphones at QuietHeadphones.com actually block more noise. For example, the EX-29 Extreme Isolation headphones will reduce noise by 29dB across the entire audio spectrum – low noises and high pitched noises alike. Active noise reduction heapdhones only block 12dB to 17dB of sound. Also, since passive noise reduction headphones do not produce that canceling sound wave, the audio is crystal clear. With the studio quality speakers in the EX-29 headphones you will hear the fine details of your music that you have may have never heard before.

Blocking Noisy Voices

If you need to block out office chatter, TVs, phones ringing and other spiky sounds like that, your only option is a good set of passive noise reduction headphones and a white noise audio track. Active noise cancelation headphones can’t calculate a canceling sound wave fast enough to block out these types of sounds. Passive noise reduction headphones, however, block out all types of sounds. No matter what type of headphones you choose you will still be able to hear background noise. It would take over 60dB of sound reduction to provide complete silence and that is only achieved in expensive recording studios. Headphones simply can’t block that much noise so there is going to be some background noise that you hear. But if you listen to a white noise audio track (comes free with your purchase at QuietHeadphones.com) you can mask out virtually all background noise. This is a GREAT solution if you need to concentrate or study.

Do I Need Batteries?

Another really important thing to consider is the ongoing cost of having to replace batteries every month in active noise cancelation headphones. With the Extreme Isolation headphones there are no ongoing costs because they do not use batteries. So be sure to figure the cost of 2 AAA batteries per month into your budget if you are considering the purchase of active noise cancelation headphones. Let me also reissue the warning that if your batteries die on you, your headphones may stop working altogether and you will certainly lose your noise cancelation feature.

Leaking Noise

One last point before I summarize why I recommend the the Extreme Isolation headphones, and passive noise reduction headphones in general, is not only do they block outside sound from coming in, they keep your music from leaking out and disturbing other people. Some people even use the EX-29 Extreme Isolation headphones in studios where sound leaking out of the headphones and into microphones can be a real problem. With the EX-29 Extreme isolation headphones you can start listening to some music then take the headphones off and press the ear cups together. You will be amazed when you realize that virtually ALL of the sound is kept within the headphones. At normal listening levels, if you take the headphones off your head and press the ear cups together you can’t hear any sound leaking out.

Summary

So, in summary, we recommend passive noise reduction headphones and, in particular, the EX-29 Extreme Isolation Headphones from QuietHeadphones.com

• Excellent value for the money
• 6 month, 110% money back guarantee (you don’t see that on products that don’t work)
• No batteries
• Blocks more sound than active noise reduction headphones
• No sound leaking out
• Best sound and no swooshy hiss
• Free white noise MP3 comes with your purchase!

To understand how hearing works, you first have to understand sound. Your hearing system is based solely on physical movement. An object produces sound when it vibrates in matter. This could be a solid, such as earth; a liquid, such as water; or a gas, such as air. Most of the time, we hear sounds traveling through the air in our atmosphere.

When something vibrates in the atmosphere, it moves the air particles around it. Those air particles in turn move the air particles around them, carrying the pulse of the vibration through the air.

To see how this works, let’s look at a simple vibrating object: a bell. When you hit a bell, the metal vibrates—flexes in and out. When it flexes out on one side, it pushes on the surrounding air particles on that side. These air particles then collide with the particles in front of them, which collide with the particles in front of them, and so on. This is called compression.

When the bell flexes away, it pulls in on the surrounding air particles. This creates a drop in pressure, which pulls in more surrounding air particles, creating another drop in pressure, which pulls in particles even farther out. This pressure decrease is called rarefaction.

How Hearing Works

To hear sound, your ear has to do three basic things:

• Direct the sound waves into the hearing part of the ear
• Sense the fluctuations in air pressure
• Translate these fluctuations into an electrical signal that your brain can understand

Once the sound waves travel into the ear canal, they vibrate the tympanic membrane, commonly called the eardrum. The eardrum is a thin, cone-shaped piece of skin, about 10 millimeters (0.4 inches) wide. Since air from the atmosphere flows in from your outer ear as well as your mouth, the air pressure on both sides of the eardrum remains equal. This pressure balance lets your eardrum move freely back and forth. The compressions and rarefactions of sound waves push the drum back and forth. Higher-pitch sound waves move the drum more rapidly, and louder sound moves the drum a greater distance.

Built In Hearing Protection

The eardrum can also serve to protect the inner ear from prolonged exposure to loud, low-pitch noises. When the brain receives a signal that indicates this sort of noise, a reflex occurs at the eardrum. The tensor tympani muscle and the stapedius muscle suddenly contract. This pulls the eardrum and the connected bones in two different directions, so the drum becomes more rigid. When this happens, the ear does not pick up as much noise at the low end of the audible spectrum, so the loud noise is dampened.

In addition to protecting the ear, this reflex helps you concentrate your hearing. It masks loud, low-pitch background noise so you can focus on higher-pitch sounds. Among other things, this helps you carry on a conversation when you’re in a very noisy environment, like a rock concert. The reflex also kicks in whenever you start talking—otherwise, the sound of your own voice would drown out a lot of the other sounds around you.

The Idea Behind Noise Reduction Headphones

Our noise reduction headphones try to further reduce noise by increasing the isolation of your eardrum from sound. The only way to reduce noise is by reducing the amount your eardrum vibrates. Our headphones have been carefully and technically designed with state of the art sound blocking materials. Most noise cancellation headphones today try to reshape the noise as it hits your ear. Our headphones actually block the sound from reaching your ear by reflecting the sound vibrations away from you. That is why our headphones reduce more noise than any other headphones available.

Sources:

• How Stuff Works

What is a decibel? How many decibels is a normal conversation? Will 29dB of noise reduction block out all the noise I can hear? In this article, we answer these questions and more.

A decibel is one unit on the decibel scale, which is a logarithmic scale. The name means one-tenth of a bel, a bel being an eponymous unit named for Alexander Graham Bell and used to compare power in electrical communication, voltage, or intensity of sound. The abbreviation of bel is B and decibel, dB.

The primary use of the decibel scale today is to test audibility, and the results are called the sound-pressure level (SPL), which is similar to loudness. The Occupational Safety and Health Association (OSHA) has set guidelines to help people determine the maximum loudness they should be exposed to. The SPL level that OSHA recommends is 85 decibels, above which special ear protection is required.

The human ear is extremely sensative to sound. Your ears can hear everything from a flick of a fingernail to a loud jet engine. In terms of power, a jet engine is 1 trillion times more powerful.

On the decibel scale, the smallest audible sound (near total silence) is 0 dB. A sound 10 times more powerful is 10 dB. A sound 100 times more powerful than near total silence is 20 dB. A sound 1,000 times more powerful than near total silence is 30 dB. Here are some common sounds and their decibel ratings:

• Near total silence – 0 dB
• A whisper – 15 dB
• Hotel lobby conversation 40-45 dB
• Normal conversation – 60 dB
• A lawnmower – 90 dB
• Thunder – 100 dB
• A car horn – 110 dB
• A rock concert or a jet engine – 120 dB
• A gunshot or firecracker – 140 dB

Any sound above 85 dB can cause hearing loss, and the loss is related both to the power of the sound as well as the length of exposure. You know that you are listening to an 85-dB sound if you have to raise your voice to be heard by somebody else. Eight hours of 90-dB sound can cause damage to your ears; any exposure to 140-dB sound causes immediate damage (and causes actual pain).

How Much Noise Do EX-29 Headphones Block?

Now that we know a normal conversation is in the range of 60 dB you can see that if you buy the EX-29 noise canceling headphones you will not be blocking out 100% of all the background noise you hear. The EX-29 headphones provide the maximum amount of noise isolation possible with headphones or ear plugs, but you will still be able to hear background noise albeit at a reduced level. You can, however, achieve almost complete sound isolation by playing the free white noise MP3 you get when you buy our headphones. We have specifically designed this 30 minute long white noise audio track to mask out the maximum amount of background noise while, at the same time, promoting concentration and creativity through the use of binaural beat technology. The audio track sounds like a peaceful waterfall with a few birds playfully chirping. It is a non distracting, relaxing sound and, when played through your EX-29 or EX-25 noise canceling headphones you can drown out virtually all background noise. Listening to this audio track at a very low level will mask out talking, televisions, phones, dogs barking, and many other “spikey” noises that active noise cancelation headphones are simply unable to stop.