SONY MDR-NC500D Noise Cancelling Headphones
KOP1975
Posts: 942 Forum Member
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SONY MDR-NC500D Noise Cancelling Headphones
Can anyone help me with these? These retail for £260.00 in HMV but I got my pair for £71.00 of a well known auction site. They are in immaculate condition. Im so glad I didn’t pay £260.00
I bought them for my Ipod/Iphone which I use on London Underground 5 days a week.
Sony claim these block out 99% of outside noise but when on the underground I can still hear things such as doors beeping, the voice telling me what station is next and the train scrapping some parts of the track.
That, for me is not cancelling 99% of outside noise. There are 3 settings on the headphones and Sony suggest setting 2 for transport. When on overhead trains or buses the headphones are fine.
Im not sure whether it’s the headphones or whether it’s the Ipod/Iphone not being powerful enough. I have put all my songs on the loudest setting on Itunes so now all the songs should be louder but the headphone doesn’t seem to be that loud. I don’t want my eardrums splitting but I’d like to be able to adjust the sound. As it stands the volume is either fairly loud or quiet. Some songs need to be played loud and there seems to be no volume adjustment on the headphones.
I just wondered if anyone had these headphone so that they could give me some advice.
Thanks in advance
Can anyone help me with these? These retail for £260.00 in HMV but I got my pair for £71.00 of a well known auction site. They are in immaculate condition. Im so glad I didn’t pay £260.00
I bought them for my Ipod/Iphone which I use on London Underground 5 days a week.
Sony claim these block out 99% of outside noise but when on the underground I can still hear things such as doors beeping, the voice telling me what station is next and the train scrapping some parts of the track.
That, for me is not cancelling 99% of outside noise. There are 3 settings on the headphones and Sony suggest setting 2 for transport. When on overhead trains or buses the headphones are fine.
Im not sure whether it’s the headphones or whether it’s the Ipod/Iphone not being powerful enough. I have put all my songs on the loudest setting on Itunes so now all the songs should be louder but the headphone doesn’t seem to be that loud. I don’t want my eardrums splitting but I’d like to be able to adjust the sound. As it stands the volume is either fairly loud or quiet. Some songs need to be played loud and there seems to be no volume adjustment on the headphones.
I just wondered if anyone had these headphone so that they could give me some advice.
Thanks in advance
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http://www.sonystyle.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?catalogId=10551&storeId=10151&productId=8198552921665348955
Artificial Intelligence (AI)
Noise canceling with automatic selection of optimal noise canceling mode based on intelligent analysis of environmental ambient noise.
Unique feature:
A built-in monitor function allows you to hear surrounding sound without taking off the headphones. Perfect for listening to announcements, flight attendants, or any external sound without the need to take the headphones off.
you press a button on the headphone that cuts out the music and releases the noise cancellation until you let go of the button - its handy if you are in a airport and need to know if your flight is boarding.
I dont think this is the problem of why I can hear the underground so clearly.
Ive read a few reviews and a lot of people have said the noise cancelling is not 99% and they are really dissapointed with them.
so glad i didnt pay £260 !!!
The Office setting actually covers the widest range but offers the least cancellation. But all three curves suggest the mid and high frequencies are allowed through to a greater or lesser extent. Hence why you can still hear voices and anything else in a similar frequency range.
Also they are being a tad economical with the truth of their claims. Yes the 20dB reduction they claim will reduce the sound level to 1% of it's original level. But the human ear is not linear. In fact it is logarithmic. Each reduction by 10dB halves the perceived loudness of the sound.
So 20dB reduces the perceived loudness to a quarter of the original volume. Rather different to claiming 99% isn't it. Clearly in a noisy environment like the tube a reduction to a quarter is still going to be very noticeable.
Add in the fact that 20dB is not across the frequency spectrum and it is no wonder you don't perceive anything like a 99% reduction in volume!
i have come to the conclusion that these headphones are OK its just that they shouldnt be used with an Ipod/Iphone as the device isnt powerful enough.
That said i used the headphones that came with Ipod last night and they are loud. Very loud. Ok the music escapes out of the back and you can hear everything around you but they are 10x louder than the SONY ones.
i really think that SONY should test on the underground before saying they are 99% in cancelling sound.
The specifications clearly state that the noise cancellation is 20dB at 160Hz. Now if you translate that into power ratios 20dB means a diffference of 100 times.
In other words if there was 100W of energy to start with and you reduced it by 20dB you would have 1W left. So you have "lost" 99W. Hence Sony's 99% figure.
But as I also said that does not reflect the way we perceive loudness. The human hearing system is not linear like that but logarithmic.
To explain the difference. If the ear was linear then going from 1W to 2W would double the sound loudness. So 100W would be 100 times as loud as 1W.
But being logarithmic means that you need to go from log 1 to log 2 to perceive a doubling of loudness (and on to log 3, log 4 etc). Now if you translate that back to numbers real people understand that means that you have to multiply the sound level by a factor of ten each time to double the loudness.
So in that instance 10W would be needed to double the loudness of 1W and 100W needed to double it again. So in this example 100W is only four times as loud as 1W, not 100 times. Quite some difference.
Sony are in one respect quite accurate when they say it eliminates 99% of the sound energy, because it does. But it does NOT make the result 100th of the loudness. Just one quarter as loud. That is where they are being a tad economical with the truth.
thanks - after reading this slowly about 4 times i finally get it!
But it can easily accomodate sound pressure level changes of millions to one without any problems. But we don't perceive the difference as anything like that. A difference of a million to one in sound pressure equates to 60dB which we perceive as a "loudness" ratio of only 64 to one.
It is this difference between the absolute change in sound level and the perception of the change that leads to the confusion generated by the Sony claims.
They are quite correct to claim a 99% reduction in absolute sound level. But we don't perceive loudness changes like that. And anyone who doesn't know the difference will be "fooled" into thinking the headphones work better than they actually do.
If you were unaware of the nature of human hearing you might think that the headphones would reduce Concorde taking off to the level of a whisper based on 99% reduction. But in fact all it does is reduce Concorde to the level of a Pneumatic Drill at 3 feet or so! A very different result.
when im on a bus I get a terrible noise rushing through the headphones that hurt the ears.
can anyone help or know what it is?
i think these headphones are just plain toilet