International Noise Awareness Day: 29 April

We've all been through it often enough. We've planned our journey down to the last detail and arrived at the airport in good time. But then the real stress begins: blaring loudspeaker announcements, people snoring in the seat next to us accompanied by the constant roar of the jet engines. In the cabin of a passenger aircraft, travellers are subjected to a constant noise level of up to 80dB. And on board of a train it can sometimes become loud as well. Situations like this not only get on our nerves, they can also result in noise-related stress or, in the long term, can even be harmful to our health. The International Noise Awareness Day, which will take place on 29 April, aims to raise awareness of this problem.

“We are well aware of the stresses that travellers are exposed to when flying,” said Maurice Quarr, Product Manager Headphones. “Since 1980, Sennheiser has been developing special headphones for pilots in order to protect them against noise and stress in the cockpit.And for many years now, the experience we have gained in professional applications has been successfully applied to the development of our travel headphones.

The key invention for the development of ‘quiet’ head–phones is Sennheiser's patented NoiseGard technology, which reduces annoying ambient noise by applying active noise cancellation. The principle of anti-noise goes back to research carried out by the physicist Paul Lueg in the early 1930s. Put simply, an artificially generated sound field that is phase-inverted to the sound field of the noise has the effect of cancelling out the unwanted noise. In the NoiseGard system, miniature microphones pick up the ambient noise and electronic circuitry calculates the correct amount of anti-noise required. In this way, the headphones cancel out most of the particularly annoying low-frequency noise, such as engine or wind noise or even the rumbling of a noisy train.

NoiseGard technology has been continuously further developed over the past few years. The latest version, NoiseGard2.0, is able to reduce up to 90% of ambient noise at the push of a button. Pilots can understand radio communication more reliably and passengers in the cabin can sit back and enjoy music — without having to turn the volume up too loud. Even quiet speech or music can be clearly heard.And those who simply want to enjoy some peace and quiet can use the NoiseGard function even without an audio source.

Sennheiser's Travel Line includes a total of six products, ranging from circumaural headphones with NoiseGard technology right through to miniature ear-canal phones with excellent passive noise attenuation. “What is important is that the design of the headphones already offers protection against ambient noise. This can be achieved by large, closed ear cups that enclose the ears, by ear cups that fit securely against the ears or by perfectly fitting ear-canal phones. The top-of-the-range products are the PXC450 and PXC350 headphones with NoiseGard technology.

The aim of the “InternationalNoiseAwarenessDay” on 29 April is to raise awareness of the daily noise exposure and its detrimental effect on our health and well-being by many activities planned all over the world.