Master Theses - Details

The further development of ANC headphones leads to an ever stronger suppression of ambient noise. Users of these headphones often experience a feeling of negative pressure on the ears when ambient noise is suppressed to a very high degree. For some users, this even triggers discomfort. The feeling of negative pressure is slowly also taken into account in comparative tests of commercial headphones. However, no structured investigation of the cause can currently be found in the literature.

Therefore, in this work this underpressure feeling is to be examined  systematically in listening tests. Among others, different types of headphones, including more or less closed in-ear and potentially on-/over-ear headphones will be investigated.

Separately, the influence of feedforward and feedback ANC on perception will be investigated by implementing well-defined attenuation characteristics. This includes the influence of frequency range, bandwidth, attenuation strength and system noise. The necessary designs and tools will be provided.

In the course of the work, the effectiveness of already developed measures against negative pressure sensing will be investigated and potentially further measures could be developed.

The technical support is primarily provided by the RWTH startup Elevear with the support of staff from the Institute of Communication Systems.
Elevear's homepage is www.elevear-tech.com for more information about the startup, and its Linkedin page for breaking news is www.linkedin.com/company/elevear.