But why do they hurt people’s ears and cause headaches? Okay, so ANC headphones cancel noise by pumping an anti-noise wave into your ears. Why Do My Ears Feel “Pressure” On an Airplane? When two sounds with opposite polarities meet one another, they’re both canceled out. It’s the same frequency (pitch) of the unwanted noise, but with a reversed polarity (again, a mirror version). An anti-noise wave is basically a mirror version of the sound that your headphones are trying to eliminate. This sounds complicated, but it’s easy to understand.
They do this by monitoring your noise environment with a built-in microphone, identifying the frequencies of said noises, and blasting your ears with an anti-noise wave that cancels out the unwanted external sounds. So, ANC headphones aim to eliminate low-frequency sounds.
