philip lelyveld The world of entertainment technology

Popping the Bubble of Noise-Cancelling Headphones

... Still, I think we’ve reached the point of too much noise cancelling, because, when our individual audio realities become entirely avoidable, our public auditory landscapes get worse. Think of it as a version of the tragedy of the commons: If you can simply don your puffy AirPods Max and block out road construction outside or the loud stereo blaring from next door, there’s less impetus to address the underlying issues of urban noise pollution or neighborly accountability. In that sense, noise-cancelling headphones are a fundamentally antisocial technology. ...

A new, rather strange headphone design recently produced by the Japanese company N.T.T. Sonority (a spinoff of a major Japanese telecommunications corporation) attempts something different. The company’s nwm ONE headphones (which cost two hundred and ninety-nine dollars per pair) look like the denuded skeleton of the familiar Bose model. ... The pointed speakers are “directional,” beaming sound straight into the user’s ears so that it barely leaks; only a person standing within inches of you can hear any noise, and even then, according to my informal tests, not more than a slight buzz. The device offers a technological solution to a problem caused in the first place by an excess of technology. The nwm ONE’s tagline is “Unmute the world,” as if it were not also possible to do so simply by taking off your headphones. ...

See the full story here: https://www.newyorker.com/culture/infinite-scroll/popping-the-bubble-of-noise-cancelling-headphones