Nah. I think old way of building in-ear headphones is still fine. The ones with the flappy silicone thing around them. It filters out a good amount of noise, too, once you stick them into your ears properly.
And be a bit cautious. If it’s that loud around you that you have to turn it up really loud and have ANC, it’s probably really really loud there. Or you listen to classical music and want to filter out everything, which is fine. But then pay attention to not get run over by a car.
And the ANC headphones I tried, didn’t filter out everything. I don’t know if this changed since, but outside sounds were muffled and distorted, but I could still hear a distorted version of the train/airplane sounds and people talking. ANC is good, but I’m sticking with much cheaper quality headphones without active noise cancelling for now. The silicone around them makes the train noises and everything already so much quieter and I don’t turn the volume up too much so I can still hear if people yell at me or a car is next to me. I think it’s a good balance but YMMV. But you definitely don’t need ANC to listen to podcasts, pop and rock music etc on the train or walking through the city.
If you use any kind of speakers in or near your ears, they can damage your hearing if they’re used to drown out sound from the outside.
If you turn them up to overpower other external background sounds, that can be damaging to your hearing.
To avoid having to do this, you need noise cancelling, preferably active noise cancellation. This is expensive, though.
So cheap, and even average or expensive ear buds/headphones can damage your hearing.
Also, generally, something that hurts your ears can damage them.
Nah. I think old way of building in-ear headphones is still fine. The ones with the flappy silicone thing around them. It filters out a good amount of noise, too, once you stick them into your ears properly.
And be a bit cautious. If it’s that loud around you that you have to turn it up really loud and have ANC, it’s probably really really loud there. Or you listen to classical music and want to filter out everything, which is fine. But then pay attention to not get run over by a car.
And the ANC headphones I tried, didn’t filter out everything. I don’t know if this changed since, but outside sounds were muffled and distorted, but I could still hear a distorted version of the train/airplane sounds and people talking. ANC is good, but I’m sticking with much cheaper quality headphones without active noise cancelling for now. The silicone around them makes the train noises and everything already so much quieter and I don’t turn the volume up too much so I can still hear if people yell at me or a car is next to me. I think it’s a good balance but YMMV. But you definitely don’t need ANC to listen to podcasts, pop and rock music etc on the train or walking through the city.