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Ambient, background noise cancellation with headphones plugged in; does it still cut out the background noise?

The iPhone has built in ambient noise cancellation that cuts out background noise. Does this still work when I have headphones plugged in? To cut out the background noise for the person on the other end of the call, not to cut out the background noise for me.

iPhone 6, iOS 12

Posted on May 8, 2019 10:25 AM

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Posted on May 8, 2019 12:04 PM

You need to think about the acoustics that are involved in noise cancellation. The way it works is it samples the sound going into the microphone on the bottom of the phone and the sound going into the noise suppression mic on the back of the phone. Your voice is in sync on both because they are close together, so it knows that your voice is not noise. Sound that goes into them and that is out of sync is noise. But when you are using a headset it can be far away from the noise suppression mic so you voice will be out of sync between the headset and the noise suppression mic, so if noise cancellation was enabled it would block your voice. As usual, physics rules.


The solution is to use a headset that has built in noise suppression.

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

May 8, 2019 12:04 PM in response to philipfromwilts

You need to think about the acoustics that are involved in noise cancellation. The way it works is it samples the sound going into the microphone on the bottom of the phone and the sound going into the noise suppression mic on the back of the phone. Your voice is in sync on both because they are close together, so it knows that your voice is not noise. Sound that goes into them and that is out of sync is noise. But when you are using a headset it can be far away from the noise suppression mic so you voice will be out of sync between the headset and the noise suppression mic, so if noise cancellation was enabled it would block your voice. As usual, physics rules.


The solution is to use a headset that has built in noise suppression.

May 8, 2019 11:45 AM in response to philipfromwilts

That’s what the iPhone does when you’re using it held to your ear. The ambient noise microphone on the iPhone samples the background noise to both clean up what you hear in your ear, as well as to focus the microphone on your voice. The earbuds don’t do that, and the iPhone’s system is not active when using the earbuds.


Airbuds do both as well - they focus the microphone on your voice and clean up what you hear. And the Pioneer Rayz lightening earbuds that Apple sells also do that - they filter out background noise to both the earbuds and the microphone. But in both those cases, it is the headphones themselves providing that active noise cancellation, not the iPhone (part of the reason why both airbuds and Pioneer Rayz are so expensive).

Ambient, background noise cancellation with headphones plugged in; does it still cut out the background noise?

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