[HN Gopher] My stupid noise journey
___________________________________________________________________
My stupid noise journey
Author : ustad
Score : 101 points
Date : 2025-03-09 10:06 UTC (3 days ago)
(HTM) web link (dynomight.net)
(TXT) w3m dump (dynomight.net)
| thenthenthen wrote:
| I have been on a similar journey. The Bose headphones are nice,
| but hard to sleep with and they are ON-ear, which hirt my ears
| after an hour or so. The Bose Sleepbuds are okish, the best of
| all the products I tried, sadly discontinued. There was(is?) a
| reboot of the same product but do not have experience with those
| [0]. Anyone tried those 'soft' headband looking headphones for
| sleeping? Tips welcome
|
| [0] https://ozlosleep.com/
| Timwi wrote:
| I assume that the article is not about sleeping. For sleeping,
| have you tried foam earplugs?
| Klaster_1 wrote:
| Foam plugs absolutely do the job. What I don't like about
| these is that after listening to a book or podcast before
| sleep you need to put these in. Some nights, you fall asleep
| during playback and wake up to dogs barking, annoyed. Other
| nights, you are on the verge of consciousness and can't be
| bothered to put the plugs in.
|
| Everything sound-related is always messy in many ways. I bet
| when we get high quality replacement digital ears you can
| mute, these will still have some stupid crap going on, like
| unstable device pairing.
| thenthenthen wrote:
| Foam doesnt work against the noise here. Sleep buds plus
| Quiet Comfort on max works a bit lol
| moab wrote:
| It's a real pity they got discontinued. The sleepbuds work
| fantastic and are the only product that works for me.
| fmajid wrote:
| Anker makes these earbuds for sleep:
|
| https://www.soundcore.com/uk/products/sleep-a20-sleeping-
| ear...
|
| I haven't tried them myself, but they come highly
| recommended.
| blahlabs wrote:
| I have a set of sleepphones. They are okay. If I sleep on my
| side with the earphone directly over my ear, it does start to
| hurt, but just off with the volume a little higher works,
| depending on the content being played. I've also found they
| seem to move around a bit inside the head band and the volume
| varies a lot depending on where the earphone is in relation to
| my ear. The battery sits on the back on the band which may not
| be great for back sleepers.
|
| Any particular questions, happy to answer.
| tcoff91 wrote:
| Best solution for sleep I think is a combination of earplugs
| and Shokz openrun bone conduction headphones. Bone conduction
| headphones work better when you have earplugs in than they do
| without them so it works amazing.
|
| My favorite earplugs are Loop Quiet because foam earplugs make
| my ears sweaty and itchy. If foam earplugs work for you they
| can't be beaten as far as noise reduction.
|
| I sleep on my side so I wear the headphones backwards and
| position the bottom one so it's not between my head and pillow.
|
| I turn on the iOS background sounds dark noise and put on an
| audiobook to distract from my mind not turning off. Add in an
| eye mask and I sleep quite well.
| yapyap wrote:
| Man these were some well educated mr Bean level hijinks.
|
| I had to stifle a laugh multiple times reading it.
|
| One of the highlights was definitely:
|
| "I tried kits for making custom-molded earplugs. One hardly
| blocked any noise. Another had a small piece immediately break
| off deep inside my ear, resulting in legendary good times trying
| to remove it with a screw"
|
| like, why a screw? not tweezers, not anything of that sort?
|
| also the part about trying to have a conversation with the
| earmuffs on, lol.
|
| I feel for you OOP but still, pretty funny.
| loloquwowndueo wrote:
| Why do you feel for object-oriented programming? :)
| aredox wrote:
| This is a nice follow-up: https://dynomight.net/car-trouble/
| stavros wrote:
| Yeah this seems to be a pattern with this guy. Maybe he just
| really enjoys thinking about stuff, though.
| NKosmatos wrote:
| Noise pollution (or sound pollution) is a modern day era problem,
| and if I dare say disease. It's getting more and more difficult
| to isolate ourselves, especially in urban environments.
|
| It never ceases to amaze me that blocking noise/sound (one of the
| weakest forces) is very difficult, whereas blocking light (being
| fastest and more "powerful") is very easy.
|
| It might sound futuristic, but I expect noise canceling force
| fields to become an everyday household thing in a few years ;-)
| stavros wrote:
| > It never ceases to amaze me that blocking noise/sound (one of
| the weakest forces) is very difficult, whereas blocking light
| (being fastest and more "powerful") is very easy.
|
| How is sound weaker than light? Light is stopped by some thin
| cardboard, whereas sound will just breeze through walls.
| ben_w wrote:
| Both have huge dynamic ranges, but consider:
|
| 1. We evolved to spend 50% of the time in the presence of a 1
| kW/m^2 light source.
|
| 2. As per https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sound_intensity,
| sound intensity is 10log10(I/I0) dB, where I0 = 1
| picowatt/m^2, which means 1 kW/m^2 is ~150 dB, which is about
| what you get from standing 1 meter away from a jet engine
| (Wikipedia cited a book for that claim, and doesn't itself
| say which jet engine).
| stavros wrote:
| In terms of energy, sure, light is much more energetic, but
| the problem with sound is that it can reach your ears with
| orders of magnitude less energy than light can.
| NKosmatos wrote:
| Exactly my point, we can easily block the light from the sun
| (roughly 1400W/m2) but we can't easily block the TV/radio
| (50dB) from the neighbor living above :-)
|
| In my mind I've got this "silly" analogy that noise is like
| the strong electromagnetic force, very powerful but only in
| relatively short distances ;-)
| keybored wrote:
| Light doesn't even have mass! It's completely puny!
| taeric wrote:
| I suspect you don't appreciate how much quieter modern devices
| are growing to be. The hum of electric lights is mostly a thing
| of the past. As we move to larger electric motors, the roar of
| gas motors will become a thing of the past.
|
| Obviously, some things are just loud. My kids hate how loud the
| frogs are next to our house. And blowers will remain loud. As
| are fast cars.
|
| But, I really believe the future will sound vastly different in
| most cities. Would be neat to hear the differences through the
| years. Moving from horses to pully based carriages to gas cars.
| Now to electric cars. We have moved really fast.
| gnz11 wrote:
| With EVs you still have the issues of road noise from the
| tires.
| taeric wrote:
| Right, is why I said fast cars are still loud. Or, thought
| I said that. Surface streets are still much quieter. Moreso
| if ebikes are used.
| ryandrake wrote:
| We have people who deliberately modify their cars,
| trucks, and motorcycles to make them even louder. If EVs
| really caught on to the point most people had them, I
| would not put it past them to mod theirs to play loud
| vroom-vroom noises over speakers to match the volume
| level of ICE cars.
| Lanolderen wrote:
| Taser exhaust instead of a pops and bangs tune. Gotta
| patent that real quick.
| luqtas wrote:
| electric blowers are way quieter than gasoline ones, maybe
| we'll have neat tech like
| https://hackaday.com/2024/05/18/students-leaf-blower-
| suppres...
|
| or a revamp on aesthetics with gardens full of fruit trees
| and other cute flowers than a bunch o grass dating the time
| where lawns were a symbol of status [0]
|
| [0] https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/lawn-order/
| taeric wrote:
| Quieter, but still really loud.
|
| And blowers remain hard to beat in clearing leaves. Not
| just from grass, but also drive ways and sidewalks.
| lukevp wrote:
| This is mostly an engineering problem I think. The new
| Dewalt DCBL777Y1 leaf blowers are so quiet that even on
| loud I can use it in my garage without feeling like it's
| loud or my watch triggering a sound alert. With my gas
| leaf blower, even outside it's deafening and my watch
| immediately triggers. And the electric one is 2x more
| powerful than the gas one (in CFM, no bs about a smaller
| nozzle and "high mph", the thing BLOWS). It also works
| upside down and doesn't dump exhaust so I can use it
| inside as well as upside down when drying my car. No
| shill, I paid full price for mine and have no affiliation
| with Dewalt, just surprised and happy. I expected to
| return it because I didn't believe it would be better
| than my gas blower. That gas blower has been on a shelf
| for the last 3 months. I'll probably just sell it,
| there's no use case where it's better than the Dewalt
| except for long runtimes, which I don't need.
| taeric wrote:
| Totally possible. I have the Ego blower and it is much
| much quieter than any gas blower I ever had. Even better,
| I'm not worried about the fumes I'm breathing in from it.
| I'd still hesitate to say they are quiet, though.
|
| To your point, with gas blowers, I know when one is in
| use in the street. With the electric, I tend to know if
| in the yard. So, huge improvement. I'd expect if you
| really hate the sound and are in an apartment complex,
| you will still hear them some.
| jononor wrote:
| Devices with constant hum getting quieter can actually make
| noise annoyance worse! The brain is good at filtering out
| constant noises, so they are usually less bothersome. But
| their sounds can actually help masking out more annoying
| sounds (variable/unpredictable in loudness and/or pitch).
| This can be used as (part of) a mitigation strategy for noise
| annoyance.
| taeric wrote:
| My point with the hum was that even lights have lost the
| sounds they used to make. My gut is our future is far
| quieter than the current world.
|
| Again, there will still be loud things. But a lot of the
| noise of the modern world will go away. It is kind of
| startling how much of the modern world is gas motors
| running.
| greggyb wrote:
| Past ~20mph-30mph, tire noise matches engine noise.
|
| In the US, at least, this means that the vast majority of
| streets will not see much benefit from EV transition, at
| least with regard to road noise. The quality of the noise
| will change, but not the total volume.
|
| As an anecdotal reference point on road noise, I live within
| a couple miles of an interstate, and the noise I tend to hear
| does not have discernible engine noise. This is, of course,
| from vehicles moving at a very different speed than any
| within a neighborhood.
| taeric wrote:
| Right, I see I didn't say it in my first post, but yeah.
| Loud things are loud. Surface streets, though, should see a
| lot of improvement.
| Doxin wrote:
| Fun fact: there's such a thing as low noise asphalt.
| Obviously it doesn't remove road noise altogether, but it
| does help a lot.
| jrmg wrote:
| _Noise pollution (or sound pollution) is a modern day era
| problem, and if I dare say disease. It's getting more and more
| difficult to isolate ourselves, especially in urban
| environments._
|
| This feels true to me, but I suspect it's not. Victorian
| industry was _loud_, and cars now are quieter than ever.
| lowercased wrote:
| > and cars now are quieter than ever
|
| But no one drives cars any more. They drive trucks. And
| motorcycles. And anything with engines designed to tell
| everyone how powerful they are.
|
| I appreciate my friends/neighbors with electric cars. They do
| not offset the neighbors with F150s, Silverados, Tundras and
| other behemoths with v6/v8 gasoline engines.
| roywashere wrote:
| Big and loud cars are antisocial and should be forbidden to
| drive as a private person. CHANGE MY MIND
| luqtas wrote:
| 1. it's the closest a private can get of driving a
| personal spaceship
|
| 2. IT'S AMERICA!!!
|
| /s
| chasd00 wrote:
| 1. consensus on what is "big" and what is "loud" is
| politically impossible. 2. In the US at least, all is
| allowed except for what is explicitly forbidden. 3. So
| you're going to have to define what is too big and what
| is too loud to make it forbidden. go back to #1
| eks391 wrote:
| As long as something is measurable, you can define it,
| even politically.
|
| "Loud" can be defined as dB, perhaps a distance from the
| source of the sound or from a neighborhood/business etc.
| Ex. Any sound you produce much have adequate dampening or
| distance such that school zones and residential zones do
| not recieve greater than 75dB from any singular source,
| nor 90dB from the combination of all sources. Then
| legally concerts must use different venues, planes must
| take a more difficult path to avoid the nearby airport
| neighborhoods, etc. Maybe walls erected next to
| speedways.
|
| "Big" would probably need greater specification. One that
| already exists is lane width, so you can base things off
| that. Ex. Single-axle vehicles may not have a height
| greater than its width, where width is measured as the
| distance between lugnuts in the tightened position of the
| left and right wheels, the greater distance if the front
| and back wheels are at different distances.
| jrmg wrote:
| Most states have some form of car exhaust noise laws - a
| few even do state dB!
|
| https://www.semasan.com/resources/exhaust-noise-laws-
| state
| Lanolderen wrote:
| Excluding the freedom, definition, etc aspect:
|
| Cars are a very big carrot for hard work. They are the
| modern status symbol and toy which is available for entry
| to all budgets. Generally, big cars are luxorious, loud
| cars are fast. No one is gonna work their ass off to move
| from a 2003 Prius to a 2025 Prius. Plenty of people work
| their ass off to get a sexy car and to keep it on the
| road.
| tpm wrote:
| So, hypothetically of course, those people would be less
| stressed out if those cars were not available, as it
| would be one less attainable status symbol? No downside
| there I think.
| Lanolderen wrote:
| The carrot isn't necessarily stress because you do it
| because you want to, not because you have to. Without
| shortish term goals work is often just a chore you do to
| survive and so your parents don't nag you. Maybe so you
| can own a house by the time your entire life has elapsed
| one more time in the wage cage.
|
| Edit: Missed the status symbol itself being stressful. I
| don't think so. There's a lot of pride in just your
| status moving up. You get a 90s 7 series, you're happy as
| hell because it's yours. Moved from daddy's money to self
| sufficient. Your first car. Then you get a nice 00s 5
| series, we moving up in the world. Then you get an old
| Jag as a weekend thing, oh shit, we getting fancy. It
| just gives you a pleasant feedback loop every year to
| couple years.
| natebc wrote:
| For me it's leaf blowers. Maybe mowers or string trimmers
| though they seem to be done faster. Leaf blowers for HOURS
| from ... March through December!
| tayo42 wrote:
| 7am leaf blowers are the worst. They made me miserable in
| college durring my 4am Wow phase hah
| arp242 wrote:
| For the purpose of the conversation, I would say Victorian
| era classifies as "modern". It's a vague word with different
| possible meanings, but in many contexts "modern era" is taken
| to mean "since the industrial revolution" (give or take).
|
| It's not a continual rise in noise levels - there are ups and
| downs - and for some things volume levels may decrease while
| for other things noise may increase. But by and large, there
| seems to have been an upward trend for quite a few decades
| now.
| tpm wrote:
| > Victorian industry was _loud_
|
| Possibly. But no cars, no AC, industry built away from
| housing. Of course there were horses, trains, loud people.
| One place that can be quite eye-opening in this regard is
| Venice. It's really quiet, even when you hear people talking,
| there are no cars at all and in the evening it's very
| peaceful, more than any other city I have visited.
| layer8 wrote:
| I tried a couple of noise-cancelling headphones, but they all
| produce very audible (to me) noise, not anywhere near what I
| would consider "silence".
|
| Room acoustics is so complex that I doubt that a noise-
| cancelling force field is physically possible. ;)
| t-3 wrote:
| Silence is unnatural anyway. If you move to a rural area with
| no neighbors or traffic in sight, you'll still hear plenty of
| noises inside your house. Rather than rage about distracting
| noises, just turn on the radio or something to drown it out.
| kot_manul wrote:
| Complete silence may be unnatural but so is Fall Out Boy
| played so loud the lyrics can be heard a block or more away,
| for 24 hours a day.
|
| Some sounds are loud enough to be impossible to block out. If
| police aren't interested in enforcing noise ordinances and
| your landlord isn't interested either because they're too
| busy trying not to repair the $12K a month water leak in the
| basement of the restaurant you live on top of, your only
| option is to move.
| vessenes wrote:
| I too hate noise. That said, if you've ever spent some time far
| from human cities, you will notice there's plenty of noise out
| there, especially at night. There's probably some sort of
| evolutionary explanation about white noise vs startling noise
| etc. etc. but the main point is that it's noisy out there! In a
| very different way than city noise.
| tayo42 wrote:
| I used to go out to the mountains to stargaze, so pretty out
| there but people still lived there. Frequently there would be
| something like a dog barking for hours. I realized you really
| can't escape human bs noise.
| supermatt wrote:
| Does anyone have much experience with these headphones? I am
| looking for similar but dont like headphones pressing on my ears.
| Are the quietcomfort suitable for that? Is the ultra a worthy
| upgrade? Is there anything better on the market now? Redddit
| seems to suggest that Sony ANC is superior.
| fmajid wrote:
| He was operating on outdated advice. Yes, 1990s ANC headphones
| would only work on repetitive noise, but the technology has
| advanced by leaps and bounds since.
|
| Sony and Apple AirPods Max are considered best-in-class.
| zimpenfish wrote:
| > Sony and Apple AirPods Max are considered best-in-class.
|
| Inherited some Sony WF-1000XM4 and can confirm that they're
| really good at noise cancelling. Plus they have an ambient
| mode (with optional "filter in voices") which is helpful when
| you need to interact briefly.
| bqmjjx0kac wrote:
| I'm more sensitive to noise than most -- AirPods Max are an
| incredible tool for me. Sometimes I just wear them without
| listening to anything to block out office noises,
| conversations, etc. Unavoidably, they get uncomfortable after
| a while, but it's on the order of hours.
|
| This is starting to sound like a sales pitch, but if anyone
| like me is on the fence, they're really an incredible product
| that has improved the quality of my life, which I don't say
| lightly.
| michaelbuckbee wrote:
| Keeping to the spirit of the article, it's maybe simpler to
| think of all of the "good" ANC headphones (Bose, Sony, Apple)
| as a tier above standard headphones and just try them all for
| which one you personally like the most.
| drcongo wrote:
| I went Sony after trying both them and the Bose. The ANC was
| about the same (this is maybe 5 years ago) but the sound
| quality on the Sonys was head and shoulders better than the
| Bose. They're incredible on a flight.
| nicolas_t wrote:
| For some reason, I find the ANC of the quiet comfort to be very
| uncomfortable. When I turn on the ANC, it feels like there's a
| sort of pressure and I really dislike it.
|
| On the other hand, I don't mind the ANC from my sennheiser
| momentum.
| nucleardog wrote:
| I would recommend taking a look at rtings.com:
| https://www.rtings.com/headphones/reviews/best/by-feature/no...
|
| (That's their "picks", but they have reviews and tests on a lot
| more models. I just can't find a good place to link to just
| "all of the noise cancelling headphones".)
|
| Don't just skim the list, click in and take a look at the
| individual products. They do pretty extensive quantitative
| measurements of all of these headphones and provide useful
| commentary alongside (e.g., the Sony ones are shallower so if
| you have big ears they might get uncomfortable). They have full
| frequency response graphs for the noise isolation, recordings
| of how it fares against some test samples, etc.
|
| They also measure some less typical stuff like "clamping force"
| and "ear breathability" that's hard to tell just from briefly
| putting them on in a store.
|
| I've personally tried some (older) Sony against (older) Bose
| and I can't really comment on whether the ANC is better because
| they pushed on the arms of my glasses hard enough and the shape
| left them resting _on_ my ears instead of over them such that
| they hurt to wear after a little while. They could be head and
| shoulders above, but that would be worthless to me because I
| would never use them. So I'd mostly echo what the other
| commenter is saying--they're all pretty much "great" in
| passive/active noise cancellation and sound quality. Just get
| whichever feels best to you.
| Lucent wrote:
| I chose the Sony 1000XM4 because the RTINGS graph showed the
| strongest cancellation in the 60Hz range. All my tormentors are
| in the AC-powered machine noise range.
|
| https://www.rtings.com/discussions/adsg5oN7w-9Dgb3O/treadmil...
|
| https://www.rtings.com/headphones/1-8/graph/25566/noise-
| isol...:
| notfed wrote:
| > I am looking for similar but dont like headphones pressing on
| my ears.
|
| I have both noise cancelling "big" earphones and earbuds. I
| agree with you that the the "pressing on the ears" is annoying,
| so I usually wear the earbuds: the noise cancelling is slightly
| worse, but the latest noise cancelling technology is really
| good enough.
| criddell wrote:
| When the author mentioned they didn't understand how our ears and
| brains process sound and then said they went back to first
| principles, I thought for sure they were going to end up working
| on _their_ reaction to sounds and doing something like cognitive
| behavioral therapy.
| theoreticalmal wrote:
| This was my thought too. Seems far easier to figure out a way
| to be okay with the noise than to go to great lengths to block
| it out
| jononor wrote:
| Yeah the psycho(logical) part of psychoacoustics is actually
| more important one wrt to noise annoyance.
| metalman wrote:
| I have been thinking and learning about sound and noise
| control/isolation for a long time. I am quite sure that active
| noise cancellation in real domestic environments is impossible.
| Simple physical isolation will always be cheaper and more
| effective. The idea of portability is founded on an overly
| simplified and ancient demonstration of sign waves cancelling
| each other, and fataly leave out how human hearing actualy
| operates, and there are now indications that the very best active
| noise cancelling headphones, are working, but with side effects
| that are disorienting, and likely very bad for your health and
| brain.Do the deap, deap dive into just how sophisticated human
| hearing is at discerning usefull information in an increadably
| complecated environment, and the fact that there is NO OFF
| SWITCH, this isn't just an osiliscope excersise, your brain is
| fighting furiously to figure out what that wierd sound is, please
| be nice to your brain and dont feed it an endless unatural,
| impossible in nature, signal. 3 years of sound engineering in a
| past life, and still loving sound/music/audio and searching for
| implimentable solutions to NOISE
| taeric wrote:
| I'm curiously watching the room noise cancelling tech that manta
| sleep is building. Looks promising. Curious if folks have
| experience with similar devices?
| thih9 wrote:
| Somewhat related:
| https://www.hyundaimotorgroup.com/story/CONT0000000000090151
| (2020)
|
| > Hyundai's World's First Road-Noise Active Noise Control, RANC
| relaxing wrote:
| I hope everyone reads to the end for the real takeaway --
| believing you can re-engineer a complex solution from first
| principles is generally a fool's errand.
| jefc1111 wrote:
| It's a really good takeaway too. Analysis is a tool, not a way
| of life.
|
| My achilles heel, which is similar, but not the same, is
| attempting to over-optimise, to the detriment of myself and
| people around me. I have learnt that sometimes it is ok/best to
| act with little consideration. Usually it's worth quickly
| assessing what the worst case scenario is - if it's missing a
| flight, maybe it's good to apply some detailed analysis. If
| it's being 15 minutes late too the pub - maybe just get on with
| life and see what happens. It's a really difficult and
| pervasive behaviour though, which I find some people cannot
| understand. I can't go upstairs or downstairs at home without
| briefly wondering if there is some item that should be
| elsewhere (washing, scattered toys etc) that I could carry with
| me. I can't switch a light off without doing a quick evaluation
| of how long it will be until needs to be back on, and therefore
| whether or not it is in fact worth turning it off. Gah!
| anothereng wrote:
| think of it as habits. It's a good habit to turn off lights
| when you leave a room but it's not a rule you have to do or
| else
| patrickmay wrote:
| Great story. It reminded me of this quote:
|
| "A month in the laboratory can often save an hour in the
| library." -- Frank Westheimer
| zimpenfish wrote:
| Similar sentiment used these days: "Weeks of work can save us
| hours of planning".
| andrewflnr wrote:
| But what he's talking about is an hour in the laboratory saving
| him months in the library, so to speak. As usual, wisdom is
| knowing which situation you're in.
| brabel wrote:
| I have gone through a similar journey. In my case I believed the
| main problem was the neighbour next door. I got an extra layer of
| gypsum on the wall but turned out the noise comes from all sides.
| You can't win in such situation. Apartment buildings not built
| with noise isolation in mind should be illegal. Had to move out
| and went to live on a house that was absolutely silent. Well, as
| long as no one outside was mowing the lawn or something. Then,
| after 10 years, forgot the problem existed and decided to buy a
| new house near a busy road. What an idiot I am. Now going through
| all possibilities: already ordered an extra thick glass layer on
| my windows (it already has 3 layers), bought sound sound
| dampening panels (they do not do anything other than help a tiny
| amount with echo), sound dampening curtains (no effect, but at
| least stop the daylight well) and may even build a new fence and
| build glass walls around my balcony. But yeah, you can get used
| to traffic noise, I hear, and sound cancelling headphones solve
| the issue as long as I wear them (nearly all day anyway while I
| work)... it's getting better already after a couple of months.
| But stumping neighbours upstairs, your only defence really is
| headphones.
| lukevp wrote:
| Can you plant bushes or shrubs between you and the road? Also
| if you add a water feature between you and the road it would
| add more constant background noise which would raise the
| baseline that noises would have to exceed before you could hear
| them.
| brabel wrote:
| My house is on the top of a hill. There is already some trees
| in front of it but it would be impossible to put several
| lines of them which would be needed to have any effect. I
| believe a good glass fence in front of the house will help a
| lot (together with the extra glass on the windows) by
| reflecting away most of the direct noise (but no idea if that
| will really work). I've already gone through lots of
| discussions about it, and you're right, a water feature is
| suggested often, I need to have a look at that.
| Anechoic wrote:
| > Can you plant bushes or shrubs between you and the road?
|
| A thin strip of foliage does (basically) nothing to reduce
| noise propagation. Dense foliage (meaning you can't see
| anything through it or move through it) gets you about 1 dB
| reduction for every 10 feet of thickness.
| dingnuts wrote:
| one decibel reduction at what reference pressure, and for
| which frequencies? I think you don't really know, or you
| would have specified.
|
| as with most things relating to acoustics, the truth
| appears to be extremely complicated[0] and foliage has
| different effects at different frequencies including
| reflection (which may perceived as amplification in some
| scenarios)
|
| 0 https://sarantinosgeorge.com/2019/05/25/the-sound-
| absorption...
| bongodongobob wrote:
| There's really not much you can do short of building a room in
| a room. Your curtains and sound panels treat mid to high
| frequency but does nothing for the low frequencies of traffic
| that are penetrating your walls. You need a combination of mass
| and isolation to treat that.
| svilen_dobrev wrote:
| as sibling comment says, low frequencies are problematic. See
| what they put around highways, usually a 2cm thick glass and/or
| stone wall. Maybe put a good fence as far as possible from
| house?
|
| But then there are even lower frequencies. They go through
| everything - they are shaking it.. thunder/rumble. A huge mass
| works, but i don't know if it's only way.
|
| For example, find a hill/ridge that has the city on one side,
| and nothing/wilderness on other side, go on top of it. You will
| hear whole city - mostly low freqs. Go a bit further in the
| "nothingness" direction. Then a bit more. And listen.. the
| feeling is like your ears are being unplugged - it's _that_
| sound disappears - and you are so get used to it..
| chasd00 wrote:
| is noise from commercial aircraft low frequency? I live in
| DFW about 20min from a major airport and I remember going
| outside after 9/11 when all air traffic was grounded. It was
| eerily quiet even though I was still in the middle of a large
| metropolitan area.
| wholinator2 wrote:
| Well it includes those low frequencies. I'm sure if you've
| flown you've experienced the strange ear-plugging feeling
| of flight. The fuselage is highly sound damped from the
| engines but you still get the low frequencies. Also could
| be that pretty much everyone tried to not go outside during
| 9/11, probably a lot more than just planes stopped
| svilen_dobrev wrote:
| the air being pushed out/around from aircraft engines
| probably.
|
| most running engines produce some low freqs, and also slow-
| rotational things.. like cars' wheels thumping on streets
| and roughnesses there.. esp. thousands of those. And then
| combinations of almost same freqs produce very low
| differentials - something on 50hz and another on 53hz will
| yield some 3hz. Which cannot be heard, it's to be felt.
|
| Another similar silence happens if one is in a street/
| suburb/ block-of-flats full of airconditioners-on-walls
| when the power goes off.
| jibbit wrote:
| I used to think background noise was my enemy.. until a week in a
| stifling motel with a clunky window unit proved me wrong. It
| started with me having tantrums that i'd never sleep and ended
| with me having some of the best sleep ever. I've slept with a
| noise machine ever since
| Climatebamb wrote:
| I had a similiar thing with my eye sight: I couldn't believe or
| accept that my eye sight got really bad in a short period of time
| (i was 15).
|
| But i did compensate for 5 diopter relativly good.
|
| I did learn plenty of that research, made me more aware of eye
| sight and because i was very young, hard to say that it was
| obvious to just accept it at that time.
|
| In hindsight my school grades were definitly worste than they had
| to be...
|
| And regarding noise: We have a wonderful big lake here in germany
| and small mountains around it, you can hear the autobahn (going
| around it) everywhere and we really do a shitty job with handling
| car noise. Even on the small mountain or in the nature area you
| hear cars.
|
| I definitly will move out of the city in the next few years and
| in an area which does not have a autobahn close by. I'm happy
| driving 30-60 minutes to the autobahn.
| Azkron wrote:
| Something that has helped me a lot when dealing with noise or
| other distractions is present time meditation. Just sit there and
| focus on actively hearing and feeling everything, I would just do
| 5 min sessions but quite often. After practicing this for while I
| became less distracted and more comfortable wherever I was.
| ericyd wrote:
| This was a joy to read. This comment is not useful but sometimes
| I just want to share a reaction.
| elric wrote:
| I hate having to wear headphones in order to block obnoxious
| sounds. Obnoxiously loud people should simply stop being
| obnoxiously loud. Houses needed better sound proofing. Vehicles
| need to be quieter. Planes shouldn't fly over densely populated
| areas.
|
| So much noise is utterly pointless. A symptom of wasted energy.
|
| Soundproofing homes during renovations is stupidly hard to do.
| E.g. I can't soundproof a party wall without tearing down and
| replacing a staircase. I installed new windows which block a lot
| of sound (double glazing, where each pane is of a different
| thickness), but noise makes it way in through vents and cracks
| all the same.
| Ntrails wrote:
| Every night I can hear ubers reversing up the road with their
| obnoxiously loud lorry-style reversing warning beep. If I'm not
| already asleep, it keeps me up (and for some reason it takes
| them forever to park or whatever they're doing).
|
| Obviously it's marginally more safe than not having a beep! So,
| you know, ancillary impacts be damned...
| arp242 wrote:
| It's also a solved problem:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6rwJ5NCf1Vw
|
| Tesco delivery trucks have them here in Ireland; it's pretty
| good stuff. Still quite loud/noticeable when you're up close,
| while at the same time not being completely obnoxious to
| everyone in a kilometre radius.
|
| Looking at their website it mentions several patents, so
| perhaps that's one reason it's not more widely used.
| amenhotep wrote:
| Good lord, I've gone a long time without knowing what that
| was all about. First time I heard it I assumed the lorry
| had a broken reversing beep speaker or something!
| elric wrote:
| Car alarms are similar. Maybe (but doubtfully) they'll
| prevent your car from being stolen/trashed/emptied. But at
| the cost of waking up an entire neighbourhood every time a
| bird shits on it a little too forcefully (or whatever it is
| that randomly sets off car alarms in the middle of the
| night). That's not a tradeoff that works for me.
|
| Your house is on fire? Fine, wake up the whole neighbourhood.
| You're in physical danger? Sure, emergency services can be as
| noisy as they need to be. Some of your stuff is in danger of
| being stolen? Meh, I don't want to get out of bed for that.
| froh wrote:
| We have obnoxiously loud little people around and sometimes no
| matter what I say they forget or outright refuse simply
| stopping being obnoxiously loud.
|
| noise cancelling headphones are a godsend, making the noise
| level bearable so we react reasonably and kindly despite
| obnoxiously loud little people.
| ryandrake wrote:
| Yea, if we could solve the "Obnoxious People" problem, it
| would solve a huge number of other problems. It's wild how
| much unpleasantness in the world boils down to a few anti-
| social, obnoxious, belligerent jerks ruining it for everyone.
| Lanolderen wrote:
| From the "obnoxious person" perspective a few anti-social
| karens and kents should get with the times and stop ruining
| things for everyone. /s
|
| It's all subjective. To me the idea of living in a city and
| hearing your pulse sounds like living in the rubber room of
| an asylum. Going to great lengths to do so is weird to me.
| I do however find the sound of engines and cars/planes
| pleasant so I'm probably lucky.
| wholinator2 wrote:
| Yeah regular cars aren't a problem, but the kind of cars
| that are made to be intentionally loud, driven by people
| who take pleasure in driving them intentionally loudly
| is. Also blaaaasting some fucking song from your
| motorcycle at max volume just sitting at a stoplight
| outside my house is insane. Police sirens are also loud
| but the loud is a biproduct of the helping people so i
| can understand it. But holy shit I'm moving somewhere far
| away from intersections as soon as my lease is up.
| tristor wrote:
| Loud cars aren't /inherently/ the issue, it's that most
| of the people who want their car to be loud also have no
| concept of sound quality for their exhaust tone. Your
| typical 4-banger ecobox driven by a 19 year old stoner
| with an Aliexpress exhaust is not what people mean when
| they say that they like the sound of cars.
|
| I like the sounds of cars, and cars can absolutely have
| their sound tuned to be pleasant. Famously, Lexus for the
| LFA had Yamaha (yes the piano people) tune the sound of
| the engine and exhaust, which sounds absolutely lovely.
| Even far more mundane vehicles (not supercars) can sound
| quite nice. For instance, while I generally don't think
| positively about Ford, this last generation of Mustang GT
| had a wonderful exhaust note from the factory with the
| cutouts open, it was throaty and loud without being full
| of drone.
|
| Nobody wants to hear an Aliexpress exhaust or the kid
| with the beater BMW leaking oil that they put a popcorn
| tune on.
|
| Motorcycles are a different story, but motorcycle riders
| are also a different sort of asshole.
| froh wrote:
| oops, errrm, I was referring to kids in the household. just
| claryfyin'
| elric wrote:
| Just to be clear: I wasn't referring to children in my rant.
| Children can be loud (and obnoxious), but that's usually
| fine. Having an adult around who can channel their energy
| away from the neighbours is all that's needed there.
| stdbrouw wrote:
| > Planes shouldn't fly over densely populated areas.
|
| Usually the planes were there first, though. Airports were
| built far away from population centers, but then the
| surrounding towns or cities expanded.
|
| See https://www.construction-physics.com/p/why-is-it-so-hard-
| to-...
| arp242 wrote:
| That's not really how I read in that article. It's the
| introduction of the jet engine that caused the bulk of the
| problems. It does mention O'Hare in Chicago as an example of
| an airport built far from the city only to have the city
| eventually expand around it, but that was in the 40s, 50s,
| and 60s and wasn't a big problem until jet engines came
| along. It also mentions that airports have become much much
| larger (both in terms if surface area and traffic) - it's not
| just cities that have expanded. There is a big difference
| between "an airplane once a day" and "an airplane every five
| minutes", whether it's during daytime or early
| mornings/evenings/nights.
|
| My hometown is also an example of an airport built far form
| the city (in the 30s) only to have the city expand around it,
| but traffic has expanded massively since the early 00s (after
| the city expansions happened) with RyanAir traffic. Before
| that it was mostly a military airport with some limited
| regional passenger traffic.
|
| As an additional point, the most noise isn't necessarily near
| the airport but sometimes dozens of kilometres from the
| airport. Sometimes this is because the airport changed flying
| routes due to noise complaints and/or expansions.
| elric wrote:
| Maybe that's true where you live. My town is just under 2000
| years old.
|
| I get that it makes sense from a logistics point to keep
| airports close to people. But's incredibly disruptive to all
| the people who are impacted by frequent loud bursts of noise
| during landing & takeoff.
| sigilis wrote:
| What earphones did the author end up using?
|
| It is strange that after relating all the dead ends in some
| detail and found his solution, he does not share it.
| thenthenthen wrote:
| I guess Bose QuietComfort (hinted at by the bold font). These
| are ON ear headphones. Not ideal for me personally. These will
| hurt after an hour or so depending on your ears I guess. I
| prefer the Sleepbuds II (see below also)
| joshdavham wrote:
| These are the headphones I bought last week. From my
| experience, I can wear them hours on end and feel fine.
| timerol wrote:
| (2023)
| 1970-01-01 wrote:
| >Never satisfied, I tried some other models. But, no--the model
| that everyone says are the best were indeed the best. So let's
| review: I had a problem. The ultimate solution to my problem was
| to do the most obvious possible thing. But I convinced myself
| that wouldn't work and spent two years trying everything else.
|
| "Try a non-creative approach." -Albert Einstein
| mauvehaus wrote:
| I wear earmuffs for work pretty regularly for extended periods of
| time. If you get ones with the metal connector between the ear
| covers, you can spring it so they aren't so tight over your head.
|
| The usual failure mode on earmuffs is the cushion bit that seals
| around your ear drying out and getting brittle. Or the foam in
| the ear cushions getting hard or breaking down. When either of
| those things happens, it's time for new earmuffs (or ear cushions
| if you can find the parts).
|
| These are the ones I use:
|
| https://www.homedepot.com/p/3M-Pro-Grade-Earmuff-90565-4DC-P...
| runjake wrote:
| I explored similar solutions but recently switched from AirPods
| Pro to AirPods Pro 2. I was genuinely surprised by how much
| better the noise canceling was for my needs, such as working in
| the office and doing yard work.
|
| Last night, I used them at a sporting event where loud techno
| music was playing, and I could hardly hear the music while
| clearly listening to my podcast.
|
| Proper fit of the earbuds is absolutely key and AirPods don't
| match everyone's ear shape, so YMMV.
| chasd00 wrote:
| i've fantasized about some kind of external noise cancelling
| system for use at a gun range. It would be nice to have
| something that would make it bearable to be behind someone
| shooting a firearm without ear protection.
|
| btw, you know in action movies when there's 10 people with
| automatic weapons shooting it out in a building and talking to
| each other? yeah.right. firearms are so unbelievable loud,
| there's no way any conversation is happening in that
| environment. further, video doesn't do the supersonic blast
| justice at all it's something you have to experience.
| InitialLastName wrote:
| AIUI, active noise cancelling doesn't really work well for
| impulsive sources like gunshots because the impulse does not
| exist for enough time for predictive interference to
| function.
|
| Additionally, because noise cancellation depends on the phase
| of the wave relative to the receivers (your ears) it really
| needs to be within ~1/4 wavelength of your ears, or 3" at
| 1kHz.
|
| In gun ranges, what you would probably benefit most from is
| passive energy reduction, so ear protectors (already usually
| covered) and acoustical treatment. However, acoustical
| surface is very expensive where flat concrete is cheap, so
| you end up with gun ranges being big reverberative spaces
| instead.
| philip-b wrote:
| >the model that everyone says are the best
|
| Is that airpods, or Bose something, or Sony something?
| jedimastert wrote:
| No OP, but I can vouch for for Sony WH-1000X3 (not the most
| recent model but I assume they haven't gotten substantially
| worse). I know many autistic folks who use them for very
| similar audio sensitivity and use them myself.
| bkcooper wrote:
| In the article, "quiet" and "comfort" are bolded in that
| section, indicating that they are referring to Bose
| QuietComfort headphones
| mananaysiempre wrote:
| Judging by the phrase " _quiet_ and _comfort_ able" (emphasis
| in the original), the author is using headphones from the Bose
| QuietComfort series. Those are, indeed, widely acklowledged as
| the most comfortable in each generation, including for
| prolonged periods. The ANC is also state of the art though
| possibly a bit worse than on the Sony XMs, and the battery is
| decent with the same caveat.
|
| I don't believe I've ever heard the AirPods Max called the best
| on any of those fundamentals, only on the Apple ecosystem
| integration and the spatial audio. (The tuning is also
| ostensibly less plebeian than on Bose or Sony, but if you care
| for sound enough to be willing to spend AirPods Max money
| you're probably getting the Focal Bathys instead anyway.)
| LichenStone wrote:
| What I do to deal with general noise but specifically disruptive
| low frequency noise from my surroundings is to mask it, in
| particular with longform (often an hour long) dub techno tracks.
| CV313 is good for this. It's the only good way to counteract the
| subsonic energy coming through my walls and ceiling.
|
| We experience sub frequencies with our whole body, certainly I
| seem to have a high sensitivity to the 5-30Hz stuff. So no amount
| of ear plugging will be really that effective.
| joshdavham wrote:
| Noise cancelling headphones have quite literally been one of the
| best things I've ever spent money on. I started using them three
| years ago (about a year out of college) and I was immediately
| filled with immense regret that I didn't invest in a pair
| earlier.
|
| Noise cancellers have made it so much easier for me to focus,
| they've lowered my stress levels, made me a more effective
| programmer and even made me a nicer person.
|
| I also recently just shelled out $600CAD for a new pair of Bose
| noise cancellers and they were worth every single loonie!
| byronic wrote:
| smashing molecules
| sitkack wrote:
| His upstairs neighbors have their own channel
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4IRB0sxw-YU
| sepositus wrote:
| I'm sensitive to noise, have been using noise-canceling
| headphones for many years, but just recently developed chronic
| tinnitus. I can still use the headphones, but I _have_ to be
| playing music in order to block out the ringing. Which then makes
| the original problem worse over time as my ears start to hurt
| from so much constant sound.
|
| Anyway, I've been in a real pickle for a few months now.
| Wondering if anyone else has the same problem?
| password4321 wrote:
| One recent discussion of many:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43082700#43083496
| m463 wrote:
| my noise journey:
|
| 1) try noise cancelling headphones
|
| NO: they have undefinable effects on your psyche. Maybe
| "pressure" or some sort of non-silent silence that your body
| still reacts to?
|
| 2) white noise, pink noise, music, classical music, new age
| music, atmospheric sounds, etc
|
| NO: actually, these are similar to noise-cancelling headphones.
| Your brain is still reacting to the sound in a non-passive way.
|
| 3) giant earmuffs
|
| NO: heavy, physical head pressure, etc
|
| solution) 3M ear classic NRR 33 earplugs. when I need to
| concentrate. while sleeping. Keep a pair around for "that guy"
| playing videos on his phone in public. The BEST. I buy 200 at a
| time.
|
| After reading this article, I wonder if noise-cancelling
| headphones + 3m earplugs might work together?
| schiffern wrote:
| This is me.
|
| I trim the length to ~half to avoid sticking out, which causes
| them to catch and loosen. I also find that washing them first
| with an organic soap (Dr B) can reduce skin irritation during
| long-duration wear. When earplugs get wet they inflate almost
| comically, but after drying they shrink back down to regular
| size.
|
| I use the rounded 3M EarSoft rather than the square-edge Ear
| Classic.[1] And actually, I just get the clone down at Harbor
| Fright...
|
| Presumably this changes the attenuation somewhat (and voids the
| cert), but any difference isn't noticeable and it helps a lot
| for long-duration comfort and overall wearability.
|
| (and yes, obviously I don't stick them in too far :D )
|
| [1] https://www.3m.com/3M/en_US/p/c/ppe/hearing-
| protection/earpl...
| fracus wrote:
| I found the noise cancelling headphones don't completely
| eliminate loud intermittent noise but prevents them from being
| offensive and jarring. I use them almost all the time and worry
| they have negative long term effects. They certainly have
| positive effects though.
| andrewflnr wrote:
| > (Earbuds inside the earmuffs don't work because they get
| knocked out of position and then can't be adjusted.)
|
| Interesting. I've used earbuds inside earmuffs quite a few times
| and not had this problem, except when the cord gets tugged.
|
| I definitely agree with the principle that if the experiment is
| fast and cheap, just do it.
| davesmylie wrote:
| I've done this a lot - mostly with big machinery where the ANC
| on the earbuds, or the (not aviation quality) ear muffs alone
| don't suffice to bring the noise down to an acceptable level.
|
| It works well - but have them in long enough, particularly when
| physically working and the earbuds will loosen and shift. The
| seal on the earbuds with your ear canal is important,
| especially with ANC buds. Removing face shields and ear muffs
| to re-adjust earbuds is frustrating.
| MinimalAction wrote:
| I completely understand the sentiments of the author. It's easy
| to fall into the trap of "it's too easy to be true; let me try
| out a 'clever' way", and fall into the cycle of figuring out
| things that have 100 different parameters and thus hard to model
| realistically.
|
| On the other hand though, which are the _best_ noise-cancelling
| earphones or headphones? I 've gone down this route, and haven't
| been satisfied with what was suggested. Airpods Pro 2 seems great
| at canceling noise, but sounds flat. Soundcore products have a
| phenomenal sound quality, but can't cancel noise as effectively.
| chrisldgk wrote:
| Sony Head- and earphones have in my experience been the best at
| both. The WH-1000XM series are the best noise cancelling
| headphones I've tried so far and the WF-1000XM series are the
| best earphones I've had. My personal favorite tip is the Sony
| Linkbuds S, which aren't as good as the WFs at either sound or
| noise canceling, however they're the best price to performance
| you can get on the market IMO
|
| Edit: I should also say that the tuning on the WH headphones is
| pretty bass-heavy (somewhat obnoxiously so), so make sure to
| use an equalizer to remove some of that.
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