Hifi binaural in-flight noise-cancelling recordings

[svenx]

While on vacation, I brought my R09 recorder to record in-flight audio and also record how my spanking new AudioTechnica ATH-ANC7 noise-cancelling headphones. The recordings are of rather high quality and available in lossless format without any filtering. The only processing on the files are fade-in and fade-out and also reducing the volume of some of the clicks resulting from turning the noise-cancelling unit on and off.

The idea with this is that you can

• hear how well the ANC7's performed in a real scenario.
• use the recordings to simulate an in-flight scenario to test other noise-cancelling headphones.
• use the recordings for whatever purpose you want; they are in the public domain.

Please note:

• For best results, use high-quality headphones to listen to the recordings.
• You don't need to download all files. To get the best impression on how the ANC7's performed, try either boeing777-ath_anc7-test3 or airbus319-ath_anc7-test.
• The FLAC files are encoded using the reference libFLAC 1.2.1. By the time of writing, this is fairly new, so some players might have problems playing the files. If you hear skipping, pauses or the player stops after some seconds, you probably have to update the FLAC decoder library in your player, or reencode the files to a different FLAC version or format.
• There is quite a lot of rumbling low-end in the recording, as they have not been filtered at all. You might want to filter out some of the low-end, depending on what you use the recordings for.
• All files are mirrored at the Internet Archive.

Enjoy!

Recording equipment:
Roland/Edirol R-09, 24-bit 48kHz (max) setting
Sound Professionals SP-TFB-2 in-ear binaural microphones

Encoding information:
FLAC: reference libFLAC 1.2.1 20070917, --best compression, 24-bit, 48kHz
MP3: LAME v3.97, ~166kbps VBR, 16-bit, 48kHz

File descriptions:
boeing777: China to Paris, Air France Boeing 777-300/ER, 2007-12-31
airbus319: Paris to Norway, Air France Airbus A319-111, 2007-12-31

airbus319-ambience-unfiltered (4:15)
Download: FLAC [mirror] (42MB), MP3 (5.7MB)
Recorded in the middle of airplane with not much going on. Some occational sounds from passengers.

airbus319-ath_anc7-test (1:27)
Download: FLAC [mirror] (14MB), MP3 (1.8MB)
0:17 - Putting on headphones (noise cancelling enabled)
0:36 - Disabling noise cancelling
0:46 - Removing headphones
0:51 - Putting on headphones
0:55 - Enabling noise cancelling
1:09 - Removing headphones
1:12 - Putting on headphones
1:14 - Removing headphones
1:16 - Putting on headphones
1:21 - Removing headphones

boeing777-ambience-unfiltered-pt1 (6:22)
Download: FLAC [mirror] (68MB), MP3 (8.4MB)
Recorded in the middle part of economy class. Flight attendants speaking. General sounds from passengers.

boeing777-ambience-unfiltered-pt2 (4:25)
Download: FLAC [mirror] (49MB), MP3 (5.9MB)
Food is being served. Lots of rumbling with plastic bags and sound of people eating and chatting.

boeing777-ambience-unfiltered-pt3 (1:57)
Download: FLAC [mirror] (20MB), MP3 (2.6MB)
Rather quiet. Not much going on.

boeing777-ambience-unfiltered-pt4 (7:08)
Download: FLAC [mirror] (72MB), MP3 (9.2MB)
Rather quiet. Not much going on.

boeing777-ath_anc7-test1 (0:50)
Download: FLAC [mirror] (7.8MB), MP3 (1.1MB)
0:11 - Putting on headphones (noise cancelling disabled)
0:17 - Enabling noise cancelling
0:43 - Disabling noise cancelling
0:47 - Removing headphones

boeing777-ath_anc7-test2 (2:24)
Download: FLAC [mirror] (25MB), MP3 (3.1MB)
0:08 - Putting on headphones (noise cancelling disabled)
0:17 - Enabling noise cancelling
0:23 - Connecting to in-flight video system
1:04 - Disabling noise cancelling (input audio remains connected)
1:17 - Enabling noise cancelling
1:39 - Removing headphones
1:50 - Putting on headphones
2:12 - Removing headphones

boeing777-ath_anc7-test3 (4:05)
Download: FLAC [mirror] (38MB), MP3 (5.1MB)
0:09 - Putting on headphones (noise cancelling disabled)
0:24 - Enabling noise cancelling
1:15 - Removing headphones
1:29 - Putting on headphones
1:35 - Disabling noise cancelling
1:48 - Enabling noise cancelling
1:56 - Removing headphones
2:08 - Putting on headphones with in-flight video system
2:40 - Disabling noise cancelling
2:46 - Enabling noise cancelling
3:15 - Removing headphones
3:23 - Putting on headphones
3:54 - Removing headphones

MD5sums for FLAC and MP3 files:

93bab6ddd098f94ee540e48f4436a232 *airbus319-ambience-unfiltered.flac
4723a6f571bef315409981868646fd87 *airbus319-ambience-unfiltered.mp3
19f2374e82751c22760612ae550b5c9f *airbus319-ath_anc7-test.flac
4a49a948dcac85aa9a2aa84125de5dd9 *airbus319-ath_anc7-test.mp3
3435f5bdcd415937d4fcfd25f65d2ec2 *boeing777-ambience-unfiltered-pt1.flac
20e373f662fd80d712659c4a7088768e *boeing777-ambience-unfiltered-pt1.mp3
305a4ccdedb6a1353273cd2c9a3bcf14 *boeing777-ambience-unfiltered-pt2.flac
d7e16e1a705f90364457ca7d445cb323 *boeing777-ambience-unfiltered-pt2.mp3
ce2c6d827b0613d0e250fa0249f17214 *boeing777-ambience-unfiltered-pt3.flac
9465eff42250f92164d324c7867c7b72 *boeing777-ambience-unfiltered-pt3.mp3
ac7f9b665a0e7f5b61c83220c2f5db53 *boeing777-ambience-unfiltered-pt4.flac
2eeb04b5332f36ba73765055f0e4997c *boeing777-ambience-unfiltered-pt4.mp3
376f190e1773cb51052137b0af6f099c *boeing777-ath_anc7-test1.flac
9836b0738870683073a1a747a3eef4fc *boeing777-ath_anc7-test1.mp3
8de5bfc10eeec2f7a6405699a981d35e *boeing777-ath_anc7-test2.flac
abe5641dad00aca6e7cbec2fa3bd6c27 *boeing777-ath_anc7-test2.mp3
8248aab375e23bea372a401f35b2c2d3 *boeing777-ath_anc7-test3.flac
d74ac340d2be8fadefc4cf3bc1ba0f23 *boeing777-ath_anc7-test3.mp3