Headphone apparatus including an equalizer system having an open loop characteristic with a rising slope outside the cancellation band

Abstract

A headphone includes an acoustic pipe, a loudspeaker unit, a microphone unit and a feedback circuit. The acoustic pipe has an inner diameter substantially equal to that of an external auditory canal. The acoustic pipe has a mounting portion provided at an end thereof for being mounted on the outer ear and has an acoustically non-reflective end at the other end thereof. The loudspeaker unit is provided on one side of the acoustic pipe with a sound emitting face thereof opposed to the inside of the acoustic pipe. The microphone unit is provided on the one side of the acoustic pipe with a sound collecting face thereof opposed to the inside of the acoustic pipe. The feedback circuit feeds back an output signal of the microphone unit to an input side of the loudspeaker unit. The feedback circuit includes an equalizing section. The output signal of the microphone unit is supplied to the loudspeaker unit by way of the equalizing section. The equalizing section has an open loop characteristic wherein an attenuation characteristic in a frequency band other than a frequency band in which noise can be canceled rises higher than an attenuation characteristic in the frequency band in which noise can be canceled.