Active Noise Cancellation Distortion in Headphones

Temme S. Active Noise Cancellation Distortion in Headphones. In: 2025 AES International Conference on Headphone Technology. Audio Engineering Society; 2025. Paper 1. Available from: https://aes.org/publications/elibrary-page/?id=22927

@inproceedings{Temme2025_22927,
  author = {Temme, Steve},
  title = {{Active Noise Cancellation Distortion in Headphones}},
  booktitle = {2025 AES International Conference on Headphone Technology},
  note = {Paper 1},
  year = {2025},
  month = aug,
  publisher = {Audio Engineering Society},
  url = {https://aes.org/publications/elibrary-page/?id=22927}
}

TY  - CPAPER
TI  - Active Noise Cancellation Distortion in Headphones
AU  - Temme, Steve
T2  - 2025 AES International Conference on Headphone Technology
M1  - Paper 1
PY  - 2025
DA  - 2025/08/18
UR  - https://aes.org/publications/elibrary-page/?id=22927
PB  - Audio Engineering Society
LA  - en
AB  - Active Noise Cancellation (ANC) in Headphones effectively attenuates external background noises from droning airplane engine noise to everyday annoying environmental sounds. This permits greater enjoyment of music or speech, but at what cost? Like most signal processing, its benefits come with trade-offs such as added electronic noise and distortion. This paper uses several types of electroacoustic measurements to reveal some of these hidden trade-offs and attempts to explain how they affect the overall headphone playback sound quality.
ER  -