SoundSense unveils sophisticated Noise Cancellation System for audio purists
For home theater owners that love audio as much as (if not more than) video, unwanted noise is a real downer. Thankfully, the sound engineers at SoundSense completely agree, and now the company known for its acoustic dampening solutions is delivering a Noise Cancellation System that reportedly eliminates all that excess noise when you fire up your speakers and amplifiers. Put simply, the process simply utilizes a small microphone and speaker; the "noise-canceling speaker emits sound with opposite qualities of the noise source, thus eliminating distracting sounds." We've no idea how costly said solution will be, nor if it will be easy for novices to use, but don't hesitate to give SoundSense a call and see what it'll take to zap the interference lingering in your HT.
Filed under: DIY, Other hardware, Speakers, Others
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
earthling @ Aug 1st 2008 12:06PM
I have a hard time believing that this works. I am an audiophile and I HATE external noise when I am listening to music but I have a hard time believing that this could work. because..
Sounds emanating from two different sources will behave differently (reflection, refraction) depending on where (both in distance and space) you are relative to the source. For instance just moving around a room will cause the sound to change.
The concept of noise canceling is simple, generate noise (sound waves) that are identical in amplitude and frequency but out of phase with the original sound and the two will cancel each other out.
But, if you have two waves and they wave start from different source points, then the fact that they are identical but out of phase will mean that they will only cancel each other out when coincidence allows them to have matching reflections/refractions. At any other point in time/space they are just going to act like separate sources of noise (think echo).
So.. the external sounds which bother you while listening to music, which are coming from multiple sources, cannot be canceled by a speaker and its point source emission of sound. The only place that this thing will cancel the sounds is probably right at the microphone input.
The reason that noise canceling headphones work as well as they do is because they replace the sound you would have heard (the ambient noise) right at the outside (or inside) of your ear canal, almost but not completely eliminating the external source.