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

[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.

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.

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?

[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

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.).