“Many are seduced by the idea that they can listen in silence,” complains ZDNet columnist Chris Matyszczyk.

“This doesn’t seem to be true,” he writes, describing a typical experience with some $279.95 Beats Studio3 wireless over-ear headphones:

I could still hear so much of what was going on beyond the soccer match or movie upon which my headphones were supposed to be focused. This wasn’t noise-canceling. It was noise-dulling… I did a little research. This noise-canceling thing is a splendid hype. The technology works best on quashing — somewhat — low-frequency sounds. The more high-pitched elements of life — human speech, babies on planes, high-revving engines, the Darkness in concert — get a little flattening at best, once you don your headphones. Door bells, a glass being dropped on the floor, a dog barking — all these sounds were slightly dulled by my headphones, but still perfectly audible.

I’m not suggesting Beats is solely responsible for the promise of noise-canceling being overblown. I understand it’s the same with all other headphones of the genre. It’s like a self-driving car that actually needs you to check it’s not about to kill you….

Yes, if I wear my Beats for a couple of hours and then take them off, I feel like I’m returning from some sort of purgatorial netherworld. But these things are supposed to cancel noise. You know, like you cancel a subscription or an air ticket. When I decide to cancel my flight from San Francisco to New York, I don’t expect to still have to fly to Boise, Idaho.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot – ‘I Bought Some Noise-Canceling Headphones. They Don’t Cancel Noise’