How Do You Drown Out the Office Noise?

An anonymous reader asks: "We've recently had yet another office re-organization, which is not so bad in itself, but the noise level has increased significantly due to the type of furniture as well as job functions of those whom I share the office with. The first thing I think I'm going to do is to get a pair of noise canceling headphones, but before I spend hundreds of dollars I'd like to hear some opinions or alternatives. Two of the ones that look neat are the Extreme Isolation Headphones and Plane Quiet Headphones. What have others done to cope with noise level?"

Comments

For me it's a non-issue:

[TeleoMan]

Since my constant flood of profanity drowns out most everything where I work.

I only wish I were joking.

Re:For me it's a non-issue:

[robertc5]

Yor local gunshop should have a variety of noise-abatement devices at reasonable prices.

in-ear headphones

[Bastian]

I saved myself a whole bunch of money and bought some in-ear headphones that use foam earplugs to block out noise.

Mine is a pair of Koss The Plug headphones. Honestly, they're not very good by themselves, because the foam earplugs that come with them are very poor - it's impossible to get a good seal with them. I replaced them with a pair of my own earplugs modified with a hole through the middle (for the 'acoustic tube' that channels the sound into your ear). With that one change, they become a decent pair of headphones. The sound is still weak comparied to some professional in-ear headphones that you can get for 10-20 times as much money, but they are better than your standard earbud.

But on the upside, they also block out background noise much better than my friend's Bose noise canceling headphones that also cost 10-20 times as much money.

Re:in-ear headphones

[fm6]

Absolutely correct. Sound-cancelling headphones have their uses, but they're all in environments much more noisy than any office. I bought a pair of Sony Fontopia in-ear headphones, which come with a multi-sized set of plugs. As a bonus, the sound quality is better than for any other headphones I've ever owned. And they're a lot easier to store than over-the-ear headphones.

Re:in-ear headphones

[WebCrapper]

While I'm not in an office environment anymore, I can recommend a set of headphones my wife got me for X-Mas since she got tired of me rockin'in the house down every day. That and my office currently sounds like an airport due to being small, no carpet (wood floor) with 5 computers (3 servers and 2 laptops) running in it. Add another person and a dog walking around clicking on the floor with its nails and its enough to drive you nuts.

Now, with my Altec Lansing's (Amazon), I can't even hear her talk to me (just like a mute button - lips move and thats it) when the volume is just on medium. I can't hear the keyboard when I type anymore either... Not bad for a $23 dollar solution.

Now, when the volume is just off (which I've caught myself doing a lot here lately), I can still here some noise, but not nearly as loud. My only gripe is that, originally, I didn't like the feeling of the cups, but thats because I had never used this type before.

Last but not least, I have a pair of ear buds too and I like the Altec's better due to in-line volume control and the cup over ear instead of in-ear. I tend to get headaches after about 2 hours of buds in the ear. That and I tend to walk around on breaks with the buds in to keep from killing my ears putting them back in within 5 minutes.

And no, I'm not trying to push them that hard, I just happen to like the cheap solution my wife found. Oddly enough, she knew about these due to her profession - professional flute player in a band...

Sennheiser HD 280 Pro

[joeslugg]

I have a pair of Sennheiser HD 280 Pro headphones.
They do not have any specific noice-cancelling technology per se,
but they are the "closed" variety of headphones with circumaural
pads (surround the ear instead of rest upon it). For me, they
block out the world quite nicely. Oh and they also sound great too.

I got 'em online for under $90 back in summer.

Before that I had a set of Sony headphones of the same style (closed,
circumaural) but they cost more, wore out faster, and didn't block
out the noise as good as these Sennheiser's do.

regular old headphones

[pizza_milkshake]

a decent old pair of headphones and shoutcast. no noise cancellation. no blinking lights. no frequency-hopping reverse polarization. no iPod. the music is non-GPL and non-BSD compliant. the headphones were not Free. they don't even run linux.

Re:regular old headphones

[Stevyn]

I second that. Over my summer office job, I had one headphone over one ear listening to Howard Stern so I could hear the secretary yell "Where's your fucking time sheet?"

Air Circulation/White Noise system...

[Richard Steiner]

My previous and current exployers both have an air ventilation system which ran almost constantly, resulting in enough uniform background noise to drown out most casual conversations and such that weren't immediately next door to where you were sitting.

I don't know if the effect was intentional or not, but it might have been. In any case, it helped (and helps!) to remove unwanted distractions.

Shure E3c

[Visigothe]

I test drove the E5c and the E3c, and I purchased the E3c. Brilliant noise isolation, and fantastic sound. Shure even allows you to "test drive" them with no obligation to purchase.

Re:Shure E3c

[davco9200]

I have two pair of these (the E3c and E2C) and find them to be stellar at drowning out noise. I use them at the gym where I am moving around a lot (And where big air plane sized ear muffs are unsightly) and they work really well at almost completely drowning out the surrounding gym-blather. I have used the other style before and I have found my ears getting hot, and thus uncomfortable over long uses.

Check out the Comparison Chart of the different models. Yeah, they are pricey, and I wouldnt' spring for the most expensive ones unless you are a hyper audiophile. The only complaint (and I mean only) is that the base response is somewhat lacking but this can be compensated from the device side of things.

In conclusion:
* size / weight
* noise blocking versus noise canceling
* multi-fit
make them ideal for me and I strongly suggest that anyone looking for the same net results check them out.

Just how noisy is your office?

[Murphy Murph]

The first thing I think I'm going to do is to get a pair of noise canceling headphones...

Have you tried any non-noise canceling headphones? The HVAC system in my office is quite loud, but, using some cheap Sony headphones, I have never needed to turn my music up to painful levels to drown background sounds out.

If you feel you need such expensive headphones I think you should consider looking at what is locally available - making returns much easier.

Strategy: Escalation

[RedHat Rocky]

Begin the arms race, expand your noise-making capacity and take the fight to your cube mates.

Remember, in the cubes everyone can hear you scream.

In-ears are not all that...

[MC6809]

You will see many people trying to sell you on in-ear phones such as the Shure E3 or the Etymotic ER6

Trust me - these are mostly overkill. I have a set of Shure E3s that I bought to cope with our extremely loud drummer - however, unless your coworkers are using jackhammers, a good quality set of closed-back headphones (AKG 270, Sennheiser HD580, Sony MDR-7506) will sound better and be more comfortable.

Furniture Noise?

[StarWynd]

the noise level has increased significantly due to the type of furniture

My office furniture doesn't make any noise as far as I can tell. Of course I'm not lucky enough to have my "wastebasket vibrate with happiness when trash is thrown into it ."

Plain Old Full Ear Headphones

[Doug Dante]

Such as Sennheiser HD 202 Closed Headphones for about $20 will do fine.

Unless you work next to a drill press or milling machine, a good pair of cheap over the ear headphones will do you fine.

Just put them on with the music off, and you'll notice that they muffle the noise around you excellently.

BTW, I loved mine, perhaps too much. I think that my hearing has suffered somewhat from them. You may catch yourself listening at '10' to catch every detail, and that's not a good thing to do for several hours every day.

If you insist on getting noise cancelling headphones, you may want to wait for the Aiwa Noise-Canceling Headphones - HP CN6, which are only about $50.00.

Try cheaper first?

[cjhuitt]

I got some of the (cheaper) Koss noise-reducing headphones. Note the reducing part, instead of cancelling - it made the headphones about 1/4 the price of the noise cancelling kind. For my environment, they work pretty well. It definitely cuts out a lot of the noise that is not usually noticable until you haven't heard it for a while. Monitor hums, computer fans, small clicks and whirs, and even small squeaks from people shifting around and whatnot. I generally never noticed these until after I'd tried my headphones out for a couple of hours and then took them off again. They don't drown out everything, however. I could usually faintly hear the bus going by outside (I was at the street wall), and while they greatly reduced the noise from my riding lawn mower at home, it still sounding like you were sitting on top of a riding lawn mower.

For the ability to ignore/drown out more of the rest of the noise, I kept the headphones hooked up to a music source. Walkman, iPod, or whatever. If I really didn't want to be disturbed, I turned up the music until I couldn't hear normal-conversation voices from outside the headphone. Generally worked great, but if someone came up to me said "Hey!", I'd still hear them.

One interesting note to this type of headphones - your own chewing/swallowing noises aren't reduced much (if at all) while wearing them, as it is mostly transmitted through your jaw. When I had the headphones on and was chewing gum for the first time, it sounded like a disgusting mess. Something to bear in mind.

Re:Try cheaper first?

[ComputerSlicer23]

I have a set of Aiwa Noise Cancelling HP-CN6 head phones. My story is roughly like yours. The one thing I've been told about mine, is people try and talk to me and I can't hear them at all. Generally to get my attention from behind, you had to knock on my desk. It took me a while to convince people that shaking my chair wasn't such a good idea (it's like having your own personal earthquake), just tap me on the shoulder, or knock on my desk (I can feel that if I can't see it).

For about $60, they work really well. I've had the music cranked up pretty load and been told, they can't tell I'm playing music, so along with blocking out others noise, it also doesn't contribute to the problem. About my only beef with them, is they take batteries, and I have to keep my office phone, cell phone, and pager were I can see them flash to let me know when I have a phone call. Fortunately, I don't get many calls that need to be timely. However, that might be a more important consideration for other people.

Kirby

Re:Try cheaper first?

[BillyBlaze]

If I were you, I'd get a mirror to go on my monitor - frankly, I'd be freaked out if people could enter my room/cube without my noticing.

Plane Quiet, Bah!

[klausner]

Your "Plane Quiet" headphones are nothing other than Sony MDR-NC6 models, which can be had for as little as $25 with a little shopping around.

Lot's of choices with a little looking.

noice cancelling headphone reviews

[gothzilla]

Epinions has reviews of the Bose headphones here:
http://www.epinions.com/elec_Audio-Headphones_Koss _HB_SPZ-Bose_Noise_Cancelling_Headphones/display_~ reviews

Here's some more headphones from Epinions:
Maxell:http://www.epinions.com/Maxell_H P_NC_1_Nois e_Cancellation_Headphones__Lightweight_Headphones_ HPNC1/display_~reviews
Coby:http://www.epinions.com/Coby_Digital_Noise_ Ca ncelling_Stereo_Headphones_Headphones/display_~rev iews

The Kenwood headphones have no reviews.

This search from Epinons lists a lot of different brands but the only reviews are above. Check it out if you want to see more brands.
http://www.epinions.com/search/?submitted_form=sea rchbar&search_string=noise+cancelling&tax_name=Hea dphones&dyn_nav=0&dyn_nav_id=&search_vertical=t130 375&searchbar_submit=Search

Headphones? How about keyboards?

[John_Booty]

Blocking out noise is easy. I just do a lot of typing on my IBM Model-M keyboard. I can't even hear myself talk over the satisfying clickity-clack of the keys, much less anything else.

This only becomes a problem when I don't hear the fire alarms, but that's an edge scenario.

Two words:

[Black Parrot]

"Led Zeppelin"

Knee jerk reaction.....

[jotaeleemeese]

... has been headphones, earphones, louder music!

What /.ers fail to tell you is that prolonged loud music will make you deaf or will impair your hearing in the medium or long term.

In noisy environments you have a few choices:

- Get earplugs or over the ears headphones (no music, or if you inisist not loud music all the time).
- Hint to your employer that if you go deaf due to the noise they may have a legal case on their hands (not joking, if the noise is real bad your employer may be in hot water, pointing this out to them may get tehm into action, i.e. changing furniture or the office arrangements in order to reduce noise).
- Talk to your colleagues! You could come up with ways to make your environment less noisy (no talking in the corridors, no music, no conference calls in the phone's loudspeakers, all mobile phones put into vibrating mode or off, etc.).

Simple

[kinema]

Telecommute. It saves fuel as well.

home office

[realkiwi]

1. move the B&W G3 development server to son's bedroom and ban other half's noisy W2000 box from house

2. use hush as workstation

3. when kids get back from school speak quietly and carry a large stick

Much cheaper than noise-cancelling headphones

[Tom7]

You can get industrial grade hearing protection for much cheaper than noise cancelling headphones (check out the Leightning 31s, which are only about $20 and very comfortable). They also work much better than noise cancelling, across the spectrum, and need no batteries! You can even wear small ear buds under these if you want music too.

I own the Plane Quiet headphones

[wonkavader]

I bought a pair of the Plane Quiet headphones and am VERY VERY happy with them. But only on planes.

The sound they're good at cancelling is engine noies and other fairly low frequency stuff. They damp voices, but not by that much. If you wear them in a conversation, you hear the other folk -- they just sound low-fi.

My hugely favorite thing for damping noise and actually getting work done is called a DOOR. If you don't have one, ask your boss for one. If he's smart and able, he'll get one for you. Your productivity will go up.

As for using music to dampen, see Tom DeMarco's book, _Peopleware_. In it he runs tests with silence, office noise and music. The music ain't much better than the office noise for concentration. (page 78)

simple

[justforaday]

I just hum along to my tinnitus...