Quiet please: Audio-Technica has come out with a pair of lightweight, folding headphones featuring noise-canceling technology. The company claims its newly released ATH-ANC1 QuietPoint can cut out background noise by 85 percent when its noise-canceling abilities are enacted. The extraneous-noise killer can operate for up to 40 hours off an AAA-size alkaline battery. When users are not listening to music, the headphones can work solely to block out ambient sounds and the company claims the ATH-ANC1 can reduce noise by 18dB. The battery is kept in a small control box that looks like the kind of remote control sometimes attached to regular headphone cords.
The headphones fold flat into a tight little bundle and weigh just 100 grams, without the cable and battery. When not used to cut out background noise they function as ordinary stereo headphones. The ATH-ANC1 drivers are 3.5 cm in diameter and can deliver up to 105dB in a frequency-response range of 10Hz-20kHz. They come with both an airline and a stereo adapter, and a 1.2-meter cable.
Noise-canceling might be the trend in headphones but you would need to have a serious aversion to ambient noise to fork over the extra money for this kind of technology. At least the price of the ATH-ANC1, ¥9,800, is not too steep for such noise killers. www.audio-technica.co.jp/products/