Active Noise Cancellation (ANC) and transparency modes are a must-have for even mid-tier wireless headphones and earbuds. The benefits of these features are obvious to most, but they aren’t without downsides. They decrease battery life, can degrade audio quality, and can be uncomfortable in certain cases.
Over the last few years, we've seen a rising number of headsets restrict users to use ANC or transparency mode – omitting the option to simply turn them off. Surely there isn’t a prohibitive cost in letting users disable an audio feature, or some devious way amass and sell user data via always-on ANC. So why are some manufacturers, Bose and Sennheiser being among the worst offenders, restraining user choices? Sometimes they even get creative about it.
With the Accentum Plus, Sennheiser added an in-app slider to customise the strength of your ANC and transparency – not a bad idea on paper. But instead of ranging from "full" to "off", the slider adjusts the balance between the two modes, as if no other option existed. For example, reducing ANC to roughly 90% means transparency mode is at about 10%, embracing the downsides of both simultaneously. This seems like a lot of trouble to avoid the obvious solution.
Tolerate or hate it, Windows is the by far the most-used operating system in the world for consumer products. But even when a headphone manufacturer does include an in-app setting for disabling ANC/transparency, there's a decent chance Windows will get no such software support. Because who among the hundreds of millions of Windows users would want to pair Bluetooth headphones with their device? If the option is present by default via the on-device controls of your headphones or earbuds, you're possibly in luck. But if it's only accessible via an app, not so much.
I’m not suggesting we nix these audio modes. Well-designed ANC has a wide range of appeal – I'm sure you don't need examples of when you'd like to block out background noise. And transparency mode is... well, it certainly exists.
ANC uses a headset’s mic to identify external sounds and generate counter soundwaves via its speakers, cancelling them out. There needs to be a tight seal between the speaker and your eardrum for it to work, but ANC also places added pressure on your eardrum, made worse by the seal. It can be uncomfortable or nauseating, depending on how it’s been implemented and your body’s reaction to it. Some people even experience ear pain, headaches and sinus pressure.
I wear earbuds more than I should – often when I’m not even listening to anything – and I make liberal use of ANC on a daily basis. But despite my daily exposure, I’ve personally reviewed headsets that made me dizzy, queasy, or so uncomfortable that I could wear them for 30 minutes at best. Sometimes I acclimatise after a few days, sometimes not.
Even if your eardrums are made of sterner stuff, there will be times when you won't want to block surrounding noise. It’s frustrating if you have to remove your headphones or change modes every time a housemate or family member wants to speak to you. If you have kids, blocking out noise is potentially dangerous. Or maybe you only want to listen with one earbud in, at which point ANC is a needless drain on battery. But for times like these, more and more manufacturers are offering transparency mode as the sole alternative.
Transparency mode (sometimes called "passthrough") is supposed to be the yin to ANC’s yang. It uses the mic to capture outside sounds and replay them via the speakers, in theory letting the external noise pass through as if there was nothing in the way. It’s never done perfectly, rarely done well, and almost always over-amplifies background sounds and white noise. Not to mention, it takes as long to switch audio modes as it does to remove your headphones or earbuds, which has the added benefit of not making you appear rude to whoever you're talking to.
Both modes also impair sound quality. Audio playback is affected by the counter waves produced by ANC and harshed by whatever low-resolution dross your transparency mode peddles as reality. It’s usually not a huge difference (at least, for ANC), but it’d be nice to get the full audio potential out of a product you spent upwards of $300 on.
Then there’s battery life. ANC and transparency modes often lower time between charges by 30% or more. Even if you’d prefer to always have one or the other active, there’s no reason to hold everyone to the same restriction. And given battery life can be a bragging point for some models, you’d think boosting it by 30% for basically free would be a no-brainer for marketing alone.
I'm aware this opinion has twangs of "old man yells at cloud" (a reference that by itself betrays my age) but, back in my day, the solution to all of the above was to turn ANC and transparency off. It still is, for the most part, but the option is becoming rarer every year.
I can’t think of a profit or user basis for restricting users to ANC and transparency. It’s doubtful there’d be significant R&D costs for adding a setting to turn a feature off. And for users who hate the idea of cycling through a whole extra audio mode, some headsets (like the Google Pixel Buds Pro 2) let you disable individual modes completely.
For me, always-on ANC and transparency is a firm deal breaker for any headset and a quick search shows I’m not alone. Even if we disgruntled few represent just 1% of the customer base (though I’d wager it’s higher), surely the benefits for the manufacturer outweigh the cost of adding an "off" button – preferably on the headset itself and not via an app, if we're talking Windows compatibility.
Please, let us listen to audio without interference and discomfort from an automated filter, especially if your ANC budget is lacking. Not everyone will choose to disable ANC or transparency, but it costs next to nothing and means a lot to those who will.
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Alex Angove-Plumb
Digital Content Editor
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