[ddoyle777]

My wife has a little Cavalier King Charles Spaniel who snores.  The problem is that the dog thinks the best place to be is at my feet.  Her snoring is really irritating when I'm trying to listen to quiet music and I don't really want to turn it up.  I've tried a number of closed headphones (HD-25-1 II, Denon AH-D200 and most recently the AKG K550).  All of them fail at keeping the dog at bay.
 
So my question is this: Will noise canceling headphone work any better than the passive, closed headphones?
 
I appreciate your suggestions (short of trading the dog in for an iguana!).
 
Dave

 

[skamp]

Noise cancelling headphones will likely attenuate the noise, but you will still hear the snoring somewhat. Just less. I.e. they might help but they won't completely kill it.

Edit: with music playing through the NC headphones, there's a chance the snoring won't bother you anymore. IIRC Bose has a decent return policy.

 

[IEMCrazy]

Quote:

Noise cancelling headphones will likely attenuate the noise, but you will still hear the snoring somewhat. Just less. I.e. they might help but they won't completely kill it.
Edit: with music playing through the NC headphones, there's a chance the snoring won't bother you anymore. IIRC Bose has a decent return policy.

That's a complicated question.  Noise cancelling headphones are mainly designed to attenuate or filter out semi-high frequency steady background noise like the murmur of a crowd, engines, motors etc.  They do a decent job of attenuating most other sounds too.   They have a harder time with low frequency noise mostly because low frequencies penetrate through the housing of the cup anyway, and IEMs are better isolation than even NC for low frequency. 
 
Snoring...it'll probably work somewhat, but not entirely.   You're better with it than without it, I suppose, though the audio from NC headphones is generally not going to be as good as even passive closed back headphones.  It's not BAD but you take a quality hit by the nature of how it has to operate. 
 
Unless the dog's snoring is absurdly loud, have you tried any decent closed back headphones that are known for decent isolation? 
 
Personally, though I do own a pair of the Sennheiser noise canceling ones (the better of the two) and do enjoy using them from time to time, I think a solidly isolating high quality IEM like my Sure SE535 is desirable to the NC unless I'm filtering a specific steady sound. The Senn NC sound can be fun, but it can also sound somehow artificial and "enhanced."  The 535's sound natural. But when I don't want to mess with IEMs and need isolation, the Senns do come out from time to time.