Help me not go insane at work!

August 24, 2007 12:24 PM

Are there any devices that I can plug my headphones into to give my complete silence so I can concentrate at work?

I've heard of noise canceling headphones that you connect in-line with your music player to cancel out background noises while listening to music, but what I would like is a device that I can just plug my in-ear headphones into and it will give me complete silence by canceling out all background noises. It needs to be complete silence, not white noise. Do they sell such a thing?

I know earplugs will do this for me, but I need to be able to easily put them in and take them out all day, which is why I would prefer my in-ear headphones.

posted by niwnfyc to Technology (11 answers total)

You can't do this with your existing headphones.

If you want to actively cancel out the noise that arrives at your ears then you need microphones very close to your ears so they can pick up the arriving noise and play it back in reverse phase. (Or some such logic.)

This is what noise cancelling headphones do of course. You couldn't have a standalone box because it needs to be negating the sound waves that reach your ears - not where the box is.

So you'll have to go with earplugs / active or passive headphones. I have those Bose QC2s. They work ok.. but it's not completely silent and they're expensive.
posted by NailsTheCat at 12:49 PM on August 24, 2007

You're better off with earmuffs, I think.
posted by O9scar at 1:03 PM on August 24, 2007

Some of the more expensive earplugs and ear safety gear should get you close to silence. And honestly, most people find absolute silence a little maddening, so getting close may actually be better.
posted by Benjy at 1:32 PM on August 24, 2007

Yeah, I've been in a soundproofed anechoic chamber. It's a little bit of a bug out, not that comfortable of a thing at all.
posted by TheOnlyCoolTim at 2:56 PM on August 24, 2007

I think you'd look a little crazy wearing rifle range earmuffs at work, assuming you have a normal job.

I have a pair of H.E.A.R. "musician" earplugs that I think might be perfect for you. They do a really good job of canceling out noise, but they don't hurt to wear, they're washable, they come with a case and they have a little plastic stem that sticks out which makes it easy to insert/remove them.
posted by atomly at 3:26 PM on August 24, 2007 [2 favorites]

theres always the danger that if you cancel out too much noise, you'll be overwhelmed by the sound of your heartbeat and/or breathing.

I'd suggest an iPod loaded with some minimalist electronica. Its still music (and thus sound) but its not overbearing and may even help you concentrate.
posted by Avenger at 3:37 PM on August 24, 2007

Actually, earmuffs at work works surprisingly well. I wore earmuffs at work for several months before anyone noticed. People just think they're headphones and ignore them. I even went so crazy as to wear earplugs under the earmuffs.

If you have small enough earbuds, you could wear them under earmuffs and pretty much get what you are looking for.
posted by chairface at 4:15 PM on August 24, 2007

The closest you can get to a solution with your current equipment I think is to be run a white or pink noise generator on your computer and listen with the headphones at a moderate volume. I vaguely recall hearing somewhere that that kind of noise is actually easier to mentally background than silence because it doesn't really give your brain much to latch onto but drowns out noises that could be distracting like the aforementioned internal biorhythm stuff. Earbuds or small headphones playing white noise inside larger earmuffs dampening external noise (or the drummer dealies) would make for an extremely good sonic insulator, I think.
posted by moift at 10:03 PM on August 24, 2007

Bah, next time I'll read the question before I post an answer*, sorry. Missed the pre-emptive white noise dismissal.

* if I have time
posted by moift at 10:04 PM on August 24, 2007

I've had problem with noise at work before and I tried all of the suggested things except for expensive noise-cancelling headphones. I found that both earmuffs and earplugs don't work too well because you begin to hear the noise of blood, joints creaking with the slight movement, etc. Quite simply our nervous system did not evolve to deal with near silence. Music is a better bet; either slow relaxed music 'downtempo' style like bob holroyd, falguni shah, etc OR mozart, bach and the gang for extra concentration on tough mental problems. But, in retrospect, the most of the problem was overworking, not the noise. When I'm rested and have energy I can do good amount of work with a high level of noise. My opinion, based on many years of experience, is that if you listen to a few hours of suitable music to block out conversations and noise and that's still not enough, there's just too much work for you. Another way to look at this is that you can train concentration by itself. Work on anything that requires concentration, like math, in a noisy environment (you can try annoying metal or polka music at home), and explicitly tell yourself that you're doing it to observe how well you can concentrate despite distraction. It's a skill like any other.
posted by rainy at 9:11 AM on August 25, 2007

As far as I know there are no magical "complete silence" headphones because of the limitations of active noise cancelling. I know it isn't a direct answer to your question but here's what works for me:

I'm a newly-minted graduate student with an office space in a "cube farm" environment where lots of students work on group problem solving. Sometimes, however, I need to concentrate on coding or writing and don't want to be distracted by chatter. What works for me: Sennheiser over-ear noise-cancelling phones and familiar music. I listen to a lot of softer alt-rock, but I think that has more to do with my personal musical preferences than any particular quality of alt-rock; for me, if there's music I'm already familiar with playing, my mind can just say "oh, okay, I already know this, let's tune it out" -- which is easier than tuning out the conversations the music's playing over.


For the record, I used the same solution when I worked in an office, but it was a fairly relaxed office so nobody cared that I was wearing visible headphones. You might want to look into a pair of in-ear phones with good isolation, which serve basically the same function. (Sennheiser makes those too).
posted by Alterscape at 9:46 AM on August 25, 2007