Headphones

Yeah I've experienced the same. That pressure on your eardrums feels disorienting.

I get the weird and unpleasant feeling too. Sort of like when a plane takes off and you feel the pressure build up in your ears. I generally turn off anc. Saying that, though, I prefer wired anyway and only use bluetooth headphones at a push.

Had this for the first hour or so. It's an odd filling of pressure or being floaty. Then I used them in the yard and being able to focus on something else entirely distracted me from the feeling and now I don't get it anymore. I still absolutely cannot stand how quiet it is without music playing though.

I think it's because the headphones cannot cancel out the pressure waves 100% or something so pressure is still hitting your ear but it is outside your range of hearing so you can still feel it just can't hear it.

The submarine sensation. I had that with my first crappy ANC from libratone. Try Sony's wh-1000xm series and use their app to optimize the pressure. It helped me.

You're experiencing ear fatigue. Your ear drums are getting exhausted from getting pummeled by the same sound frequencies for too long. Sounds are applying pressure to your ear drum, so the airplane feeling makes sense.

If you imagine the noise canceling sounds as hitting your ear drum, but not giving you any audible data to react to it can feel confusing the brain.

I did a couple of sound experiments with gamma frequencies back in 2015, and we found after like 15-20 minutes of using these low non-musical sounds there was ear fatigue, and even feelings of frustration until the sound was turned off. It wasn't too loud or anything stupid like that. Just the same frequency for too long.

If you're using ANC to block out city/life noises like many NYC airpod users I know, you should get some ear plugs from Alpine or some company that uses soft medical grade materials and have at least 10-15 decibels of sound filtering.

You get used to it. But it feels like pressure.

The only good anc is music

i get feelings of a plane pressurized cabin sometimes

been using iems for a few weeks now and noise cancelling is much better

Yes I just get really tired and it feels like there's something pressing against your eardrums. I had these issues with the Sony xm3 and 4 headphones. However I do not have the same issues with their iems.

It is real. Some ANC headphones have really high cabin pressures compared to others. After long use, it'll feel like your eardrums are being pressed on constantly. It's good to vent the air pressure every 10-20 minutes if you're really sensitive. I find I can go for 5 hours without feeling the pressure on my ear drums but it's still good to introduce fresh air to my ears at least every half hour. Not that I feel uncomfy and I have do it, it's just a good practice.

When I first tried noise cancelling headphones, they were the Bose ones around 2010 or so. I put them on, started to do some work at a Starbucks and then I slowly started feeling motion sickness. I thought maybe I was coming down with something. But I felt fine the next day until I used them again and once again, I got the sensation of motion sickness. So I returned them and avoided any noise cancelling headphones for a long time. Then on a trip to Vegas, I forgot my headphones, so I bought a pair of Sony WH1000XM3 at the airport and that experience was great, so maybe it was just how Bose handled the noise cancelling. If you search ANC headphones motion sickness, you'll see more information about it.

For me Bose are the worst. Start to feel dizzy and grosse really quickly. Sony aren't as bad but it does get to me after a while. Don't notice it at all with galaxy buds, but the anc isn't fantastic. Those are the only 3 I've tried

It's called cabin pressure and it's quite normal, It happens because your ears feel the muffling of the ambience too suddle so your brain thinks youre in a place with higher pressure. Some people are very sensitive to it, many others aren't. The quality of the ANC's ingeniering also matters.

I experienced the same feeling a few years ago when I first bought the Sony WF-1000XM3. It was very strange the first day, a bit annoying the second day, but after three or four days of a few hours of listening, I didn't notice anything weird anymore and have never felt any pressure again with any other ANC headphones since.

I believe It's your brain misinterpreting the low frequency "silence", assuming the eardrum is encountering resistance in the form of pressure.

I saw a study on this, and it's very clearly caused by the low frequencies being canceled. If ANC is focused on everything from low mids up instead, leaving the low bass alone, this alleviates the ear pressure sensation.

The akg n700ncm2 doesn't have that cabin pressure effect but the ANC is only effective at lower frequencies.

Two solutions for you: Etymotics or Custom IEMs. In my experience owning both, they isolate better than the vast majority of current ANC headphones. The Etymotics will also bring weird feelings to your ears, but a different type. Custom IEMs will bring weird feelings to your bank account.

There are good options without ANC like the Audeze Maxwell. The Maxwell has better sound than almost any ANC set I’ve tried so that’s a perk, and it has decent passive noise cancellation anyway.

I think the only better sounding wireless pair that I’ve used are the Focal Bathys.

I have this with some headphones, some of the better ones avoid this issue nowadays. Especially if they have adjustable noise canceling or transparency.