Eardrum Suck: The Mystery Solved

I just remembered something related to what's discussed in this article. Back in the 90's someone discovered that taking a box of Dixie stir sticks and aiming the holes toward one of your ears would create really bizarre effects in your head.

First of course is the "eardrum suck" but there are also some other interesting illusory effects. I actually managed to find that very page about it: http://amasci.com/freenrg/audhole.html

People often feel disoriented and "stuffy" when they enter a sound proof room, like a recording studio or hearing test booth, or in a stadium, calm snow fall, etc where you don't hear echo / reverb of your own voice and other things around you. It's the same illusion again. Your brain really wants to experience the room ambiance, and gets funky when that information is missing.

I have a 3 year old pair of QC 35 (I), and actually prefer the ANC sensation and lack of city noises. I really do prefer this model from the dozens I tried precisely because their ANC seems be the strongest/best currently available. I don't see any advantage in the QC 35 II, only disadvantages with mandatory Google/Alexa. I'm not married to any particular brand.

Also, I've gone through 9-10 pairs of ear cushions. The first 3 I got free (which retail for an insane $35 each), and the rest I bought from AliExpress in bulk for $6 each, which are 80% as good as the originals.

The QC 35 really hates moisture. Ever since one episode where they got a bit too damp, any amount of humidity now causes one ear cup to whine/hum at a low volume before exploding to full, deafening, microphone-speakers PA-system-like feedback right in your ear. I suspect some corrosion/intermittent short on the PCB and I'll go full Louis Rossmann if it gets worse or the battery degrades too much. I'm not handing $400 to Bose, Apple or anybody every 2 years because of their greedy cash-grabbing engineering products to fail/be avoidably fragile. (Tim Cook really ruined basically ALL consumer electronics, small and major appliances because said brands who cargo-culted Apple's approach now treat customers like idiots, hiked prices on their over-designed, over-engineered, under-tested products. I just saw a CBC video on kitchen appliance in Canada and customers keep buying crappy, defect models in droves that fail just outside of the warranty. That looks like a Lemon Law class-action lawsuit waiting to happen IYAM. The original MBPs and the ones from 2012-2013 were fairly well-made and upgradable.)

Wow, I just discovered that people dislike this sensation—I’ve always loved it. It feels like my head is “exploding with silence” when it happens

I was looking into this problem with headphones recently and it seemed the info was all over the internet. Like, it was a known issue, with a known cause. Is there something new in what he's describing that I'm missing?