Hear how the best ANC headphones handle real world and lab tests (Video)
A new video from The Verge puts some of the best ANC headphones from Apple, Sony and Bose to the test, to provide you with the best pair.
What is active noise cancellation, how does it work, how does it sound, how far has it come, what are the best headphones for various scenarios today and how does the future of ANC look? This new video from tech channel The Verge attempts to answer all of these questions, with both real world and scientific analysis.
From the first pair of consumer ANC headphones, to the most popular pairs today, The Verge hit the streets and subways of New York City with their dummy head, embedded with a microphone in each ear. This gives you, the viewer, the closest representation of noise cancelling, without actually trying on the pair yourself. They also sent off the headphones to the lab for some data-backed numbers.
While all headphones do a decent job of analysing noise and cancelling it completely, could the future of ANC be smarter, AI-powered headphones? The Verge points to Apple’s Adaptive Audio mode, coming to AirPods Pro (2nd generation) in a future update, with the headphones deciding on the fly what to and, more importantly, what not to block out, whether that’s a car horn, siren, bicycle bell or speech.
The video launched alongside a full article, with the entire report from the lab.