Headphones That Make the World Go Away

There is a new symphony in town and a way to tune it out. Loud background noise has always been a problem for listeners of portable music, with car horns, airplane engines, and trains all competing for the listener’s attention. The solution has arrived, noise canceling headphones. First produced by Bose Corporation in 1089 for US airplane pilots, noise canceling headphones have become a mainstream item. Today’s consumer models work based on the same principles of the original Bose Aviation Headset; a microphone outside the headphones picks up the sound waves of undesirable noise and the processor inside the headphones finds the opposite sound wave and transmits that to the persons ear. The opposite sound wave cancels out the background noise and the listener hears only what they want to hear. Today’s versions pipe in music from DVD, CD, and MP3 players and are used by all kinds of people; office workers, pilots, teenagers, and lawn mowers. One of the big pluses of these types of headphones is they reduce the volume needed to hear music or whatever even with loud background noise, which reduces the strain on people's ears.