Create the Ultimate Noise Cancelling Earphones

Today I am going to show everybody how to create earphones that maximize noise cancellation, plus its very simple. Double the fun!

Basically we're going to put together foam ear plugs, which is basically the most noise cancellation you can hope for unless you live on the moon or enter a vacuum chamber to listen to music. LETS GO!

Step 1: Materials

You will need:
-Foam ear plugs
-In-ear headphones
-Extra earcap thingies that should come with your in-ear headphones
-Superglue (I hate this stuff)
-Scissor
-Tweezers (optional)

Comments

[instructamaker]

WHAT DID YOU SAY... I CANT HEAR YOU!

[supalightnin]

I absolutely love this instruct able. I love it so much because of your voice tone, your attitude and completness, and most of all, the way you make something awesome even more awesome and more fun. Thank you so much for making instructables.com an even better place, for it is people like you that make this site work. Thanks once again. PS: You just made my day. :D

[taydt]

A leather punch would put a fine hole through the ear plug. Just mash the plug into a pancake and punch.

[GASSYPOOTS]

mine can pretty much do without cutting/gluing i think

[bondiboi]

Have you thought about using a bridal? heating it up so it half melt's half stabs it's way through?

[mrx23dot]

w/o glue

[ahoffman2]

You could also, instead of drilling or cutting a whole insert a stiff coffee straw all the way through and glur that inthe thcap piece that goes into the earbug.

[ahoffman2]

What about crushing it all the way flat and then using a cigar punch, the round one not the slicer, to punch a hole through?

[linuxkid]

this just reduces noise, not cancels it, canceling involves a microphone a microcontroller, and complex algorithms

[amclaussen]

Well, I guess the author meant sound ISOLATION, but the fact is that a good isolating in-ear phone (or "canal earphomne" as they are also called) is in fact the "ULTIMATE" earphone of all.

All "active" noise cancelling headphones are of low fidelity compared to the better isolating earphones. All cancelling circuits add undesirable artifacts and work properly only in the low frecuencies, thus being effective to attenuate a low hum type of noise. Rigorous testing articles of active vs. isolating phones can be found on the net.

The better isolating earphones were developed from musicians in-ear professional monitors, but with a flatter frequency response. Present day canal earphones can easily equal very high quality HiFi headphones but cost usually twice the "equivalent" of what the over the head phones cost for a similar sound. (It is the cost of having truly high fidelity on a portable device!).

[linuxnewbie]

Some personal project notes-
Didn't use superglue.  The compression of the foam around the tip of the earbuds was more than enough to hold in place.
Had great success in punching the hold by using a rotary leather punch.  The punch has a wide variety of sizes, so it was easy to punch the exact size I needed.
Paper punch makes holes way too big for any of the buds I used - though it might work if combined with superglue.
These are great on the subway - I'm able to use them at a far lower volume than my old buds, due to blocking the ambient noise from the train. 

[etsitservice]

Just a thought - If there was a constant tone of X Herts, (X refering to a single tone inaudible to the human ear), with the appropriate control circuitry and limiters, would this block out all other noises, except the incoming noise? i'm building an active noise cancelling processor unit, I'll post it up when i'm done.

[jvaughn9742]

Small diameter drill bits might work better for making a hole in the foam. The cleaner the hole, the better it should sound.

Also, rubber earplugs might work well also.

http://www.safetyexpress.com/images/product/dpas-1.jpg

[paulpropst]

This is a really good idea..but! Technically, this is considered "high isolation", NOT "noise cancelling". Noise cancelling involves using another set of microphones to purposely pick up ambient sound near each earphone and then combining this with the "program" audio in such a way that the ambient sound is "cancelled". The technique is called phase cancellation. The newer military aircraft use a version of this technology at the source to reduce engine noise. The technique has the added advantage of reducing thermal signature somewhat (if anybody cares). It kind of makes me wonder if a cheap pair of noise cancellers could be built...I've got to think about this..Hmmm!

[granonan]

how do you remove the heads from apple in ear headphones? I looked and its all 1 piece, can someone help me with this? Please respond, thanks.

[sillywabbit92]

you cut it

[alivia]

This is great, tho I am not sure earphones can look "sexy"! I was wondering if you have tried to burn through the earplug. I wonder if this foam stuff would just destroy it, or if it might work... I am also wondering how the dreml tool might do. I think I will play with this. Great job! Thanks.

[Alcreion]

Did you order those headphones from deal extream? cuz i did and they were horrible, i hated them soo much, im glad they broke tho

[vailguy]

Cancelation - actually, this should be posted as a noise reduction. cancelation refers to reproducing the signal 180 out of phase, it should be noted that only about 80% of sound can be cancelled by the the ear canal, the rest is in the form of waves absorbed by surrounding body parts. That is why actual cancelation technology works so well. Good idea though. -l-