@Volusiano Thanks for the information.
As regards compression of pre-recorded music, I went and searched online to find out if this is done for classical music (Bach, Beethoven,etc) recordings. To my surprise, some gentle compression is used but recording engineers for classical music prefer to “ride the faders”, that is they will increase the microphone amplification on low energy instruments, e.g. flutes, and decrease the amplification on high energy instruments, e.g. drums.
(Then there are the ultimate purist recordings using just 2 “crossed” microphones)
I went to a concert this afternoon of some of the old time rock and roll from the 1950s to the 1980s. I had to lower the volume of my aids and wear noise canceling over the ear headphones. But I did enjoy the music at a level that was comfortable. I don’t have a music ear and it sounded good to me. I was wearing my INTENT1 aids and I only have the default program.
I’m a little confused. Didn’t the noise cancelling headphones cancel out most of the live music sound that you want to hear? I can understand lowering the volume on your aids, but I don’t understand having to wear noise cancelling headphones because by doing that, the music becomes the noise and gets cancelled out by the headphones.
Usually you only wear noise cancelling headphones to cancel out the surrounding sounds so you can hear the source streaming audio content better, or if you’re not listening to an streaming audio source, to relieve yourself of a noisy environment.
No they didn’t I was actually surprised too. My first thought was to use them like hearing protection over the ear hearing protection. Like shooting protection, but the music was so loud that they didn’t help until i enabled the noise canceling. I couldn’t find my shooting protection so I grabbed what I had.
So, Chuck, didja do da twist?? 
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To old to move that way.
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Actually I think you stumbled onto a volume reducer of sort by using the noise cancelling headphones. Yeah, they do cancel out noises, but they can only cancel out up to so many dBs. But if they can only cancel out up to 20 dB of noise but the concert is at 90 dB loudness, then I guess you still hear the remaining 70 dB of the sound, I guess.
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While they cancel noise, they don’t protect from noise the way that ear protection with a similar 20 dB reduction would (using your example)?
In the old days, there used to be just the passive kind of over the ear protection that uses the sealing property of the ear cover to give you around 30-35 dB dampening. But nowadays they also sell the active kind that include microphones to let you hear what’s going on outside, but for loud sounds, the active protection circuitry dampens the sound by around 25 dB roughly when the sound passes a certain level of volume. This allows the wearer to be able to hear and be aware of the environmental sounds that are at normal level, but protects the ears from exposure to very loud sounds, like gun shots or machinery sounds. Let’s call this the loud noise suppression ear protection as to not confuse this with the other passive ear protection kind.
This loud noise suppression kind is different from the noise cancelling headphones 9designed for hearing audio stream content0 in that the noise cancelling kind cancels out even normal-level sounds right off the bat, while the active loud noise suppression headphones 9like for gun shots or loud machinery sounds) lets the normal volume level sounds in and does not suppress them unless the volume is louder than a certain loud threshold level. This way you’re not always isolated from the environmental sounds when you have them on. You can hear normally with them but are instantly protected whenever there are loud sounds popping up.
The passive ear protection usually can give you 30-35 dB in sound suppression right off the bat, and constantly, and does not rely in any kind of electronics to do so, so it’s always very reliable at protecting the ears if worn properly. And at 30-35 dB of sound protection, that’s significantly better at sound insulation than the 20-25 dB of loud sound suppression or noise cancellation of the other 2 active kinds of headphones. So in the sense that it operates passively and therefore is not prone to circuit malfunction or failure to operate due to low battery level like the other 2 kinds, and also because it has more sound insulating property, I guess it is reliably better than the 2 active kinds of headphones in terms of ear protection.
Also, the noise cancelling headphones are not really originally designed with ear protection in mind, so the microphones they use may not be designed to be able to withstand very loud noises reliably on a regular basis. On the other hand, the active noise suppression ear protection headphones are designed with ear protection in mind, so I guess the construction and selection of the microphones they use in their design is more appropriate to be able to handle loud sounds. And so is their loud sound suppression circuitry, because that’s what they’re designed for.
The bottom line is that you are right, @user490 , I would never use noise cancelling headphones specifically for the purpose of hearing protection as a replacement for real ear protection devices… But sometimes, that’s all you have and it’s better than nothing.
My daughter has a pair of AirPods Pro 2 always with her for music listening, and on the Fourth of July the fireworks near where she was walking by were too loud for her, so she whipped out the AirPods Pro 2 and was instantly relieved from the loud firework sounds. Of course she didn’t intend to use them for hearing protection from the fireworks because she actually didn’t plan to see the fireworks, it just happened nearby. But at least those noise cancelling AirPods gave her a big relief from the stress of having to put up with the firework show.
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My Bose have I believe a 20db noise canceling
I just ordered a new set of canceling headphones with larger cups and 38db noise canceling
My bose headphones are I believe 15 years old.
I’m by no means an audio expert but from what I remember from early active noise cancelling headphones (I had an early model from Sony), most of the active noise attenuation was for lower frequencies and most attenuation at higher frequencies was passive.
I searched a bit today and found a site that claims to test the actual noise reduction performance of devices they purchase. A Bose QuietComfort Ultra Headphone was tested and rated as a best choice - I didn’t find a claim of measurement accuracy or similar but they do have a plot of the measured noise reduction of the headphones with ANC on and off in dB as a function of frequency. Looks like the average noise reduction for frequencies of 50 Hz or lower was about 10 dB, about 25 dB at 100 Hz, and a max of about 35 dB between 400 and 500 Hz. The performance was about 25 dB at 1 kHz and above about 3 kHz the performance was about the same with the ANC either on or off. So most of the noise reduction is actually passive for higher frequencies. Another takeaway is that a single number is probably not an adequate representation of the performance over the frequency range of interest for those of us using hearing aids.
I hope this attempt for a link to the plot works: Noise isolation Graph
Protection from impulse noise (gunshot or similar) is more complicated - one doc I found at Pub Med suggested the only adequate protection was both conventional earplugs and large volume passive muffs used together as many active devices did not perform as claimed with the typical impulse noise from a high velocity rifle. Also, things like glasses can reduce the performance of both passive and active muffs by a significant amount.
I’m somewhat interested in the performance of noise reduction equipment as the helmet I wore in the 70s as a military helicopter pilot (USAF) was poor compared to what the Army and Navy were using in helicopters at that time. I always wore earplugs when flying (and shooting rifles and pistols) but still had hearing loss when I separated to go to grad school.
I spend 8 years in the Navy as an electronics technician. I was given A school and B school and numerous c schools and even schools at different corporate training schools. My aids Bose are about 15 years old and as any good technician I still have the manual and technical information. The information list it as 20db reduction. I am not out to not hear just to not hear the sound as loud. I wear custom ear molds that work reasonable as earplugs if I mute my aids. My hearing loss is due to too many flights in C141 with out hearing protection. The best I ever had was wadded up cotton balls. By the use of the bose and lowering the volume of my aids allowed me to hear the music and that is all I care about.
Yesterday I received my TOZO noise canceling headphones, they aren’t high end expensive headphones but they have an app for doing updates to the firmware, equalizer adjustments, and different levels od noise canceling. I hate to admit it but they sound so much better than my old bose headphones. And yes i can set my INTENT1 aids to the t-coils and they sound great, but I believe the sound is better with my aids just using the default program. I adjusted the equalizer to increase the bass and mid range.
@cvkemp a question about the equalier on your new TOZO hearing aids - does the equalier work in both Bluetooth connection mode and wired cord connection mode, or only Bluetooth mode?
I am not sure, I have used the hardwired option. I will do that to check later this afternoon. But i am fairly sure it will work the same as Bluetooth.
I can only use the app while using Bluetooth but I played the same audio with and without Bluetooth and I couldn’t hear any difference. But my ears definitely aren’t tuned like some individuals.
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I bought and love the Rexton TV connector, thus no longer use the headset and hear much better quality with just my HAs. The Rexton TV connector was much cheaper through Costco than what I paid for the Phonak TV connector when I trialed Phonak L90s.