B&O builds a smaller noise cancelling can

We’ve seen noise cancellation in-earphones from most of the big players out there, but Bang & Olufsen is new, and it’s here with a pair it says has been designed for comfort most of all.

Sitting in the “BeoPlay” range, the H3 ANC is a pair of earphones that doesn’t appear to mess around.

Crafted from metal and made for music lovers, the earphones have — according to the company — been made for music lovers that want their sound to be comfortable, relying on a combination of technologies aimed at cutting out environmental noise without hurting the precious aural cavities known as your ears.

That last part — keeping your ears safe and happy — appears to be one of the major driving forces of the H3, with B&O saying that comfort was of paramount importance.

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“When designing a headphone to wear inside the inner ear for many hours, comfort is the most important factor,” said Jakob Wagner, Bang & Olufsen’s Industrial Designer responsible for the H3.

“The human ear is a delicate and fascinating part of the body. I wanted to honour that and care for it, to make H3 sit beautifully in the outer ear – as a piece of jewellery. The triangular form picks up the curves of the ear and blends in naturally. Soft and yet precise.”

To get to this design, Wagner and the team studied ears in 3D, producing over 30 models to get the right fit.

The rest of the engineering relied on sound, with active noise cancellation microphones built into earpieces to pick up on outside noise, with this sent to the processor inside to do what active noise cancellation normally does and reverse it to cancel it out.

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Bang & Olufsen expects the battery to last a good 20 hours here, and when it does run out of battery, you’ll find the H3 will continue to work unpowered but without noise cancellation.

Pricing on these earphones is set to $349, though we suspect these will be built for the iPhone “MFi” spec, telling us if it has a remote, it won’t work properly unless you have an iPhone. We’re checking with Bang & Olufsen to find out if an Android version will be made, or if the remote is even going to be like this, but for now, we’re going to assume that iPhone owners will see the most compatibility as this is often the case.

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Availability on this one will see the H3 in stores from late October, however, so you have some time to find out whether the H3 ANC are worth the attention of your ears.