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Best method to cancel human voices at work or public space?

16 points by PabloR ↗ HN
I have tried silicone ear plugs and in-ear headphones with good plugs but can’t find anything that completely stops human voices. I have read that the noise-canceling headphones are good for some type of frequencies, human voices not being one of them. What methods do you use to cope with it? If ear plugs or headphones, can you specify?

25 comments

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kafkaesq
Ultimately, technology is limited. What you need is a culture of "library voices". To wit: "Don't raise your voice unless you absolutely have to. Better, don't use your voice, period, if you can just do a chat session with the person. If you must use your voice -- just keep the volume down, and and the duration minimal. If you must have a full-volume conversation for any length of time -- get a room."

Basically, people in office environments get used to "yapping" for a whole lot of reasons not related to any actual need to exchange information (to vent and shoot the shit, basically) and to do so in rollicking, loud "party" voices without any regard to the downsides. Meanwhile, all it takes is a bit of introspection to realize that about 80% of this noise is just that. And a little bit of discipline to institute a culture of (relative) quiet and solitude -- even in an open plan office.

What, you say -- no time for introspection? No interest in discipline? No way to even bring up the idea of "library voices" in your culture?

Then your problems are much bigger than can what be helped by any advanced technology.

PabloR
Thanks for your reply. I agree with your "library voices" concept and I'm very respectful in regards to keeping volume down and minimal duration if there was a need for a chat. The issue is when others are not and you have no control over it, making it difficult to focus on the task at hand.
db48x
Agreed, that type of cultural change takes time, and is particularly difficult if you're a newcomer.

In the mean time, get some nice headphones. I second the recommendation of the HD-280s; they're great. Note that over-the-ear headphones come in both open-ear and closed-ear varieties; the former don't provide any isolation (they're designed to let you keep your situational awareness, which is often desirable).

stray
A door.
db48x
Preferably with walls around it.
Zelmor
I used to listen to 7 hours of white noise with my earphones from YouTube for noise canceling. It kicks in in about 4-6 minutes.

Not doing it since I changed jobs and work remote.

PabloR
I wasn't planning to add noise, but it may be a good option. I'll try this as well. Thanks
jicri
I do noisli with noise cancelling headphone, works the best
geoelectric
Voices, especially high ones, are kryptonite for NC, but the very latest models do better with them than I've ever heard before. My Bose QC35s and QC20s both do a great job of making a voice six feet away sound at least 20 feet away, and voices over 10-15 feet away not sound at all. I think the QC25s and QC30s will be similarly good. The new Sony MDR-1000X are also supposedly showing next-gen NC performance, according to early reviews.

A set of one of those will probably do the job of lessening voices to something acceptable--they do to the point that my very, very distractable self can work in an open office, whereas older NC headphones did not--but they won't completely remove it.

If you really want that, I'd suggest a set of 34dB+ reduction earplugs. If that doesn't work, put them underneath NC over-ear headphones. If that doesn't work, play white noise on the headphones. I'll be surprised if you heard anything external after that.

saghm
I have the QC25; they similalry for me as the other models do for you. I'd highly recommend them to someone looking for silence in an open office

(Note that you'll have to be listening to some sort of sound for them to be maximally effective; simply turning on the noise cancellation without playing music or some other sound through them reduces the noise, but not by as much)

PabloR
I knew about the Bose models but did not know about the Sony MDR-1000X. As you mentioned, none seem to completely stop voices, although your experience is very good at least at lessening them.

I was actually thinking of wearing earplugs and headphones at once. Thanks for the info

geoelectric
The 1000X is bleeding new. It's been out in Europe for a few weeks, and is just now coming out in US I believe.

After having gone through a number of pretty expensive NC headphones, I can say confidently that up until now nothing matched late-model Bose for NC specifically (music sound quality is another discussion). Parrot came closest, but everything else was way behind and really only blocked airplane/subway/bus-type loud hum, nothing more random or higher-pitched.

However, the initial reviews for the 1000X have all been pretty adamant that the 1000X matches and possibly beats the QC35 for NC. That's an amazing accomplishment for Sony, no lie.

At any rate, you're welcome. I have really bad noise sensitivities that make productivity hard in shared spaces, so your question is near and dear to my heart.

nicomfe
headphones and music man! cant work without music
edlucas
I've had great success over the last 10 years with a pair of Sennheiser 280 HD Pro over-the-ear headphones (https://en-us.sennheiser.com/hd-280-pro). They are great at passive noise attenuation across the spectrum (32 dB) and are extremely comfortable for long periods. It doesn't hurt that they sound great (if you like a flat frequency response) and since they are made for pro DJ and studio use, they're durable and the cord, ear pads, and headband pad are replaceable.

If I don't want the distraction of music, but still need to wipe out the sound of people talking nearby, I fire up https://rain.simplynoise.com/.

PabloR
I found this list for best noise-isolation headphones: http://headphonesaddict.com/best-noise-isolating-earbuds. There's a Sennheiser in the top 2. I may consider noise-isolation over noise-canceling. Would be great if there was a noise-canceling pair with amazing noise-isolation properties as well.

The simplenoise.com site is great. Thanks

enigmango
A few folks have mentioned white noise already. I used to work in an open-office layout with about 50 people, and I found it was much easier to mentally cancel out the chatter with consistent, light, inoffensive background noise than to try to create silence.

http://mynoise.net was great, and I only had a $10 pair of in-ear earbuds. I haven't used the site since changing jobs, but I remember liking Rain On A Tent, Wooden Chimes, and mumbly-voice environments like Laundromat and Airport Terminal.

finthecity
The best $50 I've ever spent has been on a pair of Audio-Technica ATH-ANC2 noise cancelling earbuds. Are they as good as Bose or other over-ear versions? No, but they are significantly better than non noise canceling and pretty cheap. Paired with a white noise generator (I use Spotify that has many), and the loud coffee shop chatter fades away and I can get work done.
el8950
You could surgically remove your eardrums.
kohanz
Whatever you do, don't go for an office that has a "noise suppression" system in it. A company that I used to work for has one, when I first joined I thought it was just a loud HVAC system (until I was informed what it really was). It took a lot of getting used to, or so I thought, then the headaches started coming. Headaches that would start at work and then dissipate an hour or two after leaving the office. After doing some reading and discussing with a relative who designs buildings for healthcare, I realized the connection between the two. I started working from home, no headaches. Apparently a not insignificant percentage of people have this reaction to a constant "barely audible" white noise. I'm not sure if I would have the same reaction to the headphones, but at this point I'm not trying it.
p333347
For me it is the sharp spikes in sound curve that is annoying and distracting, like honking of vehicles, screaming kids etc in an otherwise quieter environment. Any uniform/sustained sound, for that matter even constant blaring of horns on busy roads or bunch of noisy kids playing, will quickly melt into the background. I suppose this is what happens to most people too. So I just have to tolerate a bit for the easing up to happen. Earplug like contraptions make me claustrophobic of sorts. Also, I like to do things "naturally" and condition myself in general, so this approach might be due to that as well.