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Comment by pavel_lishin | Hacker News Reader

My practical solution is a nice pair of noise-canceling headphones.

I don't know what your office culture is like, but at ours it's 100% acceptable for the developers to wear headphones at pretty much any point when we're at our desks.

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I have a really nice set of Sennheiser headphones. They don't have active noise canceling, but the physical insulation they provide is good enough to drown out most noise, even without any music playing.

Though I rarely play music very loud (I'm a musician, and very protective of my hearing), I still find the headphones to be tiring to wear for hours at a time. I've found this to be true even when I'm not playing any music at all. It seems to be something about the air pressure, or perhaps not being able to hear any background noise at all, that makes them tiring to use.

Sennheisers tend to clamp down pretty hard. Especially the 280's and 380's. Maybe another brand would work better.

Thanks for the tip. I do have a big head (physically and metaphorically). Any particular brands you would recommend? I love the sound quality of the pair I have.

Beyer Dynamics Dt770 is extremely comfortable, but you'll need an amp. The isolation isn't quite as good as the HD 380 Pro.

The ATH-M50 is a popular choice, but I haven't personally tried them.

The article, and the linked comments, indicate why headphones are not a universal solution.

They aren't, but they're definitely a within-personal-budget stopgap solution. If my only options are headphones vs. hearing the VP sitting next to me making sales calls all day, I'll opt for the headphones.

With potentially negative long term consequences, and it's not even a stopgap solution for people who need silence, not music/white noise masking their VP.

I'm not saying that it is the wrong solution for you, but it's not a viable solution for everyone.

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