I assume it has something to do with the sound cancelling. It uses white noise or something, right? I’m running out of nails to test this.
I assume it has something to do with the sound cancelling. It uses white noise or something, right? I’m running out of nails to test this.
The noise cancelling headphones are listening to noise coming from the outside and cancels them out. When the source of the sound is in your mouth (see also: bone conduction), the headphones can’t hear or cancel that sound.
The headphones should still cancel the background noise as usual, but they can’t cancel whatever noise is coming from your mouth. I wonder if this mismatch could result in some noise getting through?
If you’re wearing buds, the seal could become inadequate while your jaw is moving, so that could also explain some of the noise.
Some headphones now have internal noise cancellation, such as AirPods Pro and Max. I can hear it working when I’m chewing something crunchy or when I’m using my electric toothbrush and toggling between transparency and NC modes. Kinda curious if some other cans have this as well, it’s a nice feature. There are microphones inside the cup listening to internal sounds and cancelling those out as well as external sounds.
Theoretically, that could help a little bit, but it won’t change the fact that the ear canal is only the gateway to the organ where hearing actually takes place. Due to bone conduction, the crunchy noises can take a shortcut and bypass the outer ear completely.
It still works pretty well, not as effective as regular external NC of course, but the difference between transparency and isolation modes when chewing crunchy foods or using my electric toothbrush is very noticeable. Now I’m going to have to do a bit of an experiment with bone conduction headphones from a friend and ANC mode to see how well it’s working.
Sounds really cool. Let me know how that works out.