It sometimes seems like new technology always throws new jargon into the mix, like headphones referring to active noise canceling, transparency mode, and adaptive transparency. This can make it challenging to understand what you’re buying when looking for new headphones. So, what’s the difference between noise cancelation, transparency mode, and adaptive transparency?
Noise cancelation eliminates outside noise or interference while using headphones or earphones. Transparency mode temporarily lets the outside noise in as needed, while adaptive transparency intelligently filters through the noise. Both transparency types require noise cancelation to function.
Most high-end headphones have a combination of the features, but they serve different purposes and have some unique use cases. Let’s compare adaptive transparency, transparency mode, and noise cancelation in more detail.
Noise Cancelation
We will look at noise cancelation first since it forms the foundation for all types of transparency.
Noise cancelation is the process of filtering or removing as much of the external noise and environmental sound as possible in an attempt to improve your listening experience, making the sound come across more clearly while using less volume. There are two technologies that are often referred to as noise canceling, namely active and passive noise cancelation.
Passive Noise Canceling
Also known as noise filtering, passive noise cancelation doesn’t really cancel out any noise. It attempts to reduce the amount of external noise that can enter your inner ears by plugging your ear canals or covering your ears, making them as airtight as possible.
Passive noise filtering is standard on most types of headphones and earphones, but it’s not the most effective system as there’s always some noise that can pass through.
Active Noise Canceling (ANC)
Active noise canceling is a more advanced technology that doesn’t just block external noise but cancels it out entirely. It also depends on passive systems like ear tips or covers, but it adds to their effectiveness.
Headphones or earphones with active noise canceling have external microphones that detect background noise in your environment. The headphones then use built-in processor chips to analyze the noise and generate counter-frequencies opposite to the background noise, so even though there’s technically more noise, your brain no longer detects those frequencies.
Modern active noise canceling is highly effective, but there are caveats. The most significant problem is that the headphones may accidentally cancel out some frequencies in your music if you’re in a particularly noisy area if some of those frequencies overlap, though only the most dedicated audiophiles will usually notice the difference.
Transparency
Transparency, or transparency mode, is a different technology built into most modern headphones with active noise canceling.
ANC is a beautiful system that allows you to hear your music clearly in a noisy environment, but there are times when you must be able to listen to some of that noise. Some examples include:
- Someone might start talking to you.
- You may have to listen for oncoming traffic when crossing a busy road.
- If you miss an important announcement when using public transport like buses, trains, or planes, it can have devastating results.
Usually, you would have to take out one of your earphones or turn off noise canceling in these scenarios.
Transparency mode removes that need. It’s a quick setting that you can activate on your headphones or smartphone to pick up the external sounds and play them over your earphones temporarily until you deactivate it again.
The Disadvantages Of Transparency Mode
Transparency mode works really well for the most part. It gives you near-perfect situational and environmental awareness without stopping your music. But there are three disadvantages:
- You have to manually enable and disable transparency mode, which requires additional effort, making its advantages negligible compared to taking out an earphone.
- You have to know when to enable it, and while it’s usually easy enough to see when someone’s trying to talk to you, that’s not necessarily the case with important announcements during your commute.
- It doesn’t filter the external noise at all. For example, a loud ambulance or power tool will play just as loud in your ears as if you weren’t wearing the earphones at all.
Adaptive Transparency
The most advanced technology on this list is called adaptive transparency. Though the name is mainly used by Apple for its 2nd Generation AirPods Pro range, other brands have similar technologies with different names.
Adaptive transparency is a significant step forward over regular transparency mode. When adaptive transparency is enabled, the external microphones still detect outside noise and play it back to you over the earphones. The difference is that the sound first goes through a sound processor chip.
The chip processes the noise. Important sounds, like voices, will be amplified before playback, while loud noises will be toned down in volume. So, if someone’s talking to you next to a busy road, you can hear them clearly, while loud noises like traffic and sirens will only be in the background. You will hear loud things like sirens and power tools, but they won’t be overly loud.
Disadvantages Of Adaptive Transparency
Adaptive transparency is a significant step forward from normal transparency mode, but there are some negative aspects to be aware of.
- Adaptive transparency is still a relatively new technology. With this in mind, it’s not perfect yet. Though users rave about how great it is, it relies on sound processing that doesn’t necessarily always get it right, so you might miss some important things. In life-and-death situations, like when crossing a busy road, taking your earphones out is still a good idea.
- You may have to manually adjust a few settings to get the best results from adaptive transparency. For the AirPods Pro, for example, you can navigate to the AirPods’ Audio Accessibility settings to change amplification levels, balance, noise reduction intensity, and conversation boost, among other things.
Finding a setting that works just right for you could take a while.
Which Is Better?
This is not a straightforward question to answer. First, we must consider that any transparency mode is pointless without noise canceling. Some headphone manufacturers, like UE Drops, have excellent passive noise-canceling features that don’t require active systems, but most brands use active noise canceling for the best results.
The point is that you only need transparency when you can’t hear the environment around you due to noise cancelation.
Regular transparency mode is excellent for most people, especially if you want complete control over when you hear outside noise or only want to hear your music.
Adaptive transparency is such a massive upgrade, especially the way that Apple implements the technology in the AirPods Pro, that many people consider it the best reason to pay extra for the Pro range. You may lose some control over when and how much you can adjust it, but the technology is very effective at automatically filtering noise adequately for the best listening experience.
So, unless you want complete control, adaptive transparency is the best option by far.
Conclusion
Noise cancelation is standard with most headphones and earphones these days, though not all types are as effective as others. However, with noise canceling on, you may still need to hear the environment around you occasionally. Transparency mode gives you an easy way to hear it on demand, but adaptive transparency makes the manual process unnecessary.
