Assessment of active noise cancelling headphones

Abstract

The noise reduction of active noise cancellation (ANC) headphones is usually assessed with measurements on different ear simulators. This assessment however is difficult because the ANC depends on the tightness of the wearing situations. Different ear simulators provoke different leakage situations and therefore lead to different ANC results. We conducted a listening test to get user ratings on different ANC headphones. A regression between the user ratings and the measured noise reductions leads to the identification of a measurement procedure that is reliable and robust.