To really understand this, check out the video; its visuals really helped me. And for more on how to responsibly use that noise cancelation tech, and why it won’t work as well to protect you at, say, those rock concerts, check out Butterworth’s article here.
Noise canceling can help save your ears
We’re probably all listening to music too loudly, alas.
But one last thing Ed told me I found super interesting about this: With the most powerful noise-canceling headphones, some people can get something that Butterworth coined “the eardrum suck problem.”
Vega experienced this when he bought his first pair of noise-canceling headphones in 2017. Within an hour of trying them out, “my throat started to hurt,” he said, “and I felt a lot of pressure in my ears.”
The noise cancellation was perhaps too strong. This, apparently, is a real thing — or at least it feels real to your body. It’s psychosomatic.
Basically, “we're so used to experiencing sound a certain way, it’s disorienting for your head,” Vega summed up. Noise canceling mostly affects the low frequencies, but high frequencies are still getting through. “So your brain thinks that there’s something wrong, and so it’s sending all these signals that are making you feel like there’s pressure but actually there’s no pressure.”
There is maybe too much of a good thing? Just kidding — protect your ears. If you have or can afford to buy noise-canceling headphones (even cheap ones work relatively well!), use them to mitigate loud environments. And go check out Vega’s video!
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