Silly ANR question

[rv7]

Ok, anytime headsets are the topic of discussion everyone always seems to agree that "ANR will save your hearing in the long run." This got me thinking as to whether or not it really does. The way I see it, even though the ANR is emitting the opposite sound wave in order to cancel the noise that you would be hearing, it is still emitting sound. So even though you don't "hear" anything, your eardrums are still being bombarded with sound waves. In a sense ANR just tricks your brain into thinking it's not really hearing anything, but in reality your eardrums are not only getting the vibrations from the airplane noise, but also vibrations from the ANR sound waves, in effect actually making ANR worse than regular old passive attenuation headsets. Does my thinking make any sense to anyone else (no need to quote this sentence and respond with a "No,") ? I'll be the first to admit that I don't know much about sounds waves and their properties (which many of you could have guessed by my thinking

), but this little theory of mine is something that has been bothering me and won't be silenced (get it) until you all can thouroughly explain ANR to me. Perhaps I should have paid more attention is Physics class.

 

[rv7]

Answered my own question. Thanks Google, but here is what I found in case anyone is interested. Basically, the sounds waves aren't just tricking your brain, they really do "cancel" each other out. This is what I figured must happen, however I just couldn't make myself believe it until I read it somewhere. Thanks for reading my published mental conflict.

 

[AngelFuree]

Thanks for the link. Cool article.

Yeah, I had asked myself that question before. Glad to not have doubts anymore, as well.

 

[kellwolf]

I was about to go all Physics on yo a$$ until you posted the Google link.

It's kinda like "if a tree falls in the forest" type thing.