Sound damping in a cubicle

[Ned Bedinger]

If the sound reaches my ears before it reaches the canceller, I'd still 
hear it. Hmm, this must be true, and must be the reason why they put 
cancelling in headphones instead of on the desktop or in the ceiling.

In my area scenario, I'd have to put it between me and the source of 
noise. In a place with hard surfaces, I expect some cancelling waves 
would amplify echoed target waves, making it a lot harder to get the 
desired effect.

I guess the easiest thing to do is go back to wads of tissue in the 
ears, and wait for the personal noise cancelling device arrays at 
popular prices to arrive .

Earplugs, headphones, <shudder>.

Ned Bedinger
doc at edwordsmith.com

Gene Kim-Eng wrote:
> Right.  Imagine what the waves are like in that cubicle
> after the sound comes out of the servers and bounces
> around the place.  It's one thing to read them at a point
> relatively near your ears and then emit a cancellation
> signal into your ears, but to generate cancellation that
> would blanket the entire space and be effective at all
> points within that space without earphones?  It would
> be a miracle.
> 
> Gene Kim-Eng
> 
> 
> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Ned Bedinger" <doc at edwordsmith.com>
>> Whoa. A wave shape is cancelled by the same shape 180 degrees out of 
>> phase. The electronic noise canceller, as I understand it, has to 
>> either synthesize the cancelling wave, or capture and re-emit the 
>> original sound at the cancelling phase. Theoretically, any audible 
>> wave shape, even if you vary attack, can be cancelled, assuming the 
>> canceller has the ability to reproduce it. But with a device like 
>> that, who'd put it in the office? Better to put it in the garage and 
>> play electric guitars through it :-)
> 
> 
>