Artificial deafness...

If you are reading my other blog on FC, you know that I'm about to travel. A tour of the west coast, as far south as San Francisco, and then the slow ride all the way to Vancouver. From the coast to the desert. An Eskimo in the desert definitively strikes my imagination. ;)

Suffice to say that I had it rough for the past couple of months, and taking a break from Montréal is definitively welcome.

On this blog, I'd rather like to focus on the geeky aspect of travels...

In case one wonders, San Francisco is 6 hours of flight from Montréal. Just as far away as... London, England. Add 30 minutes and you're in Paris. :)

And I wonder whether it was from excessive travel by plane (I completely max out last year), tinnitius (aka "ringing ears") has become an unwelcome guest, and the more I flew, the more it lingered.

Last summer in Seattle, I spotted this pair of headsets at an electronic store. "Quiet Zone" from Koss. It can act like a regular headset, plugged to your iPod/MP3 gizmo or like here with the adapter, plugged to the plane's PA system. But you wouldn't shell US $100 + a pop for these headsets. Besides, I'd say the sound quality is just average.

In fact, the best way to enjoy these headsets is when they are *NOT* connected to any sound device. Not bad eh?

Enter the wonderful world of active noise cancellation. In other words, artificial deafness. :)

Sound travels in the air as a sinewave. Like any sinewave, if you apply to that sinewave another sinewave that is 180-degree out of phase, both sinewaves cancel each other. The result? Silence.

Short of implanting an on/off switch onto my ears, this is the next best thing, at least in theory. (oh sweet dreams! I could be deaf to politicians and not just figuratively when they do speeches during an election. Neato, n'est-ce pas? :) )

In reality, these headsets cut down the noise considerably, but they fall short of the promised artificial deafness.

Also with the Koss, supposedly for my own safety (?), the headset will allow the human voice to go through. This is partially true. It filters the higher pitch voice of women, while male voices tend to get through in a bit muffled state.

Nonetheless, they cut down noise enough to make a long flight trip enjoyable. Enough to finally enjoy that in-flight movie, news bulletins or whatever is coming out of your iPod-like gizmo without having to boost the volume to the max, if you want to hear anything.

I lend my "deaf ears" to a few colleagues who had to travel by plane, and they all love it. The drawbacks, because there are always some, the thing is bulky (because it has to cover each ear completely) and somewhat heavy to wear. The battery doesn't last long. Just a few flights. All in all, a small price to pay to avoid tinnitius and major headaches.

These headsets also work very well on buses and trains.

On a philosophical side, isn't an irony that there are lots of research done and money spent in hearing aids and cochlear implants to help deaf and hard-of-hearing people to hear... and on the other hand, there's also a lot of big bucks invested to help hearing people... to become deaf.

All in all, my idea of an on/off switch implanted onto my ears isn't all that far out. :)

Cheers,

-E