Noise Masking vs Noise Cancelling, what’ the difference? Noise Masking covers up or masks unwanted sounds with a pleasant sound so you hear the pleasant sound and not the unwanted sound. With SoundOff you hear a soothing, calming pink noise that will lull you to sleep. Noise Cancelling uses technology to cancel out a sound. The problem is Noise Cancelling does not cancel ALL sound.
A few different Active Noise Cancelling (ANC) technologies exist, but the general gist is that your headphones or earbuds listen to the external world for incoming sounds. When the ANC tech detects an incoming sound, a minute noise-cancellation speaker emits the same tone (but inverted) to neutralize the sound.
Active Noise Cancellation reduces the sounds of the outside world from your headphones or earbuds, allowing you to listen to music, podcasts, or films without disturbance. It can also reduce the psychological fatigue of listening to loud, low frequency noise for extended periods of time. It works better for low frequency droning sounds. With ANC you still hear the sound but it’s not as loud. So, a loud hum is a quieter hum. If you are on an airplane, you will still hear the airplane engine, it’s just a less loud airplane engine. But, are they effective for sleeping through snoring and other noises that interrupt your sleep?
Active noise-cancelling headphones and earbuds do not work for all types of sound. For example, short, loud sounds (called impulses in acoustics) are difficult for active noise control circuits to deal with. In order to cancel sound, the system needs to be able to predict incoming noise waveforms, otherwise it will be too late to process and negate the noise. That’s why continuous noises are easiest for such systems to deal with—they are predictable. While great for listening to music, if you are hoping your noise cancelling headphones or earbuds will magically erase the intermittent sound of your snoring partner, sirens in the middle of the night or your neighbor’s barking dog you might be in for disappointment.
This is where Noise Masking comes in. With Noise Masking you don’t hear the snoring, the sounds of the city or dogs barking next door. Instead, you hear the “masking sound”. If you are trying to sleep it needs to be a consistent and relaxing sound that your brain just tunes out after a while. With SoundOff Noise Masking earbuds you hear our proprietary soothing Pink Noise. The SoundOff Sleep Sound (our pink noise) was designed by a PhD in psychoacoustics. He designed it to specifically mask snoring by taking out some of the higher tones and adding in some lower tones. Turns out, our pink noise masks almost any sound. Our customers say our pink noise “lulls” them to sleep and they sleep better than they have slept in years!
To Learn More about Noise Masking click here
To Learn More about our Pink Noise click here
