Hacker News Reader

Comment by boardwaalk | Hacker News Reader

If the employer provides super comfortable noise-cancelling headphones I would agree.

Personally, listening to music all day gives me a headache and podcasts are too distracting. And I don't need these headphones for anything else (otherwise, I'd already have a pair!)

I wonder what would come of it if I requested some.

View on HN

It's a total first world problem, but none of the headphones that FB provides in the vending machines are actually noise cancelling. There are Sennheiser HD 280s (huge over-ear headphones, quite comfortable, good sound quality and do deaden surrounding noise a little), Apple Earbuds (meh) and a seemingly easily-breakable Klipsch in-ear set that I can't remember the model number of.

The headphones are very reasonable for what they do (and of course, they're free to you, so even better) but in terms of actual noise cancelling you'd have to buy your own. Of course, FB pays developers well so spending $300 on a set of Bose QCs is no problem at all, but a lot of people don't bother or see the point when there are free sets in the vending machines.

Active noise cancelling is far better at drowning out constant background noise than changing sounds like conversations.

Yes, it worked much better against the hum of the A/C units than the chatter.

Passive noise cancelling works well, a lot of studio headphones are designed for that. And they're often cheaper than active noise cancelling.

There are several types of headphones in the free IT vending machines:

http://fortune.com/2011/07/06/facebooks-vending-machines-a-c...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YAjChZ3gyps

Maybe I am difficult but I simply don't want to have to wear headphones the whole day.

I am wondering if this is the divide. I personally do not mind open spaces because I have headphones. I find that I can work anywhere so long as I have wifi, my laptop and a pair of headphones. But I have also been wearing headphones most of my life to drown out the noises of my environment (and sadly the sounds of domestic abuse growing up).

So I'm curious if people who hate open spaces had greater control of their environment growing up. I didn't and adapted. Maybe I'm reaching here, but curious of other's opinion on this take.

I have over-the-ear comfy headphones that I wear. Lots of time I don't have music playing.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com