Active Noise-Cancelling Headphone Battery Life Test
Measure the performance characteristics of active noise cancelling headphones versus battery capacity

Introduction
This sequence is designed to measure performance characteristics of Active Noise Cancelling (ANC) headphones while monitoring the DC voltage and current provided to the headphone by its batteries.
The sequence first measures the passive attenuation of the headphone before moving into a loop. The loop plays a 2 minute pink noise stimulus at high output level to accelerate battery drain. During this stimulus period, a current measurement is made by Listen’s DC Connect. Immediately following the stimulus, battery voltage is measured followed by acquisition and analysis of audio parameters (response, THD and THD Normalized). The active attenuation of the headphone is then measured followed by a series of post processing and Autosave steps. The looping continues until no output is detected from the headphone, when the device shuts down due to insufficient battery capacity.
The sequence requires that the headphone’s batteries be mounted externally and the series/parallel connections needed for current/voltage measurement and general operation of the headphone are automatically managed by digital I/O addressable relays controlled from SoundCheck.
Required Software
- SoundCheck 12.0 or later
- National Instruments NI-DAQmx
Required Hardware
- Head and torso simulator (B&K HATS or equivalent)
- Listen SoundConnect 2, 2 channel microphone power supply (p/n 4024/4025) or equivalent
- Listen DC Connect programmable DC power supply/DC current/voltage monitor (p/n 4030) or equivalent
- Listen AudioConnect 4×4 4 channel audio interface (p/n 4051) or equivalent
- 2 channel audio power amplifier
- 2 channel headphone amplifier
- 2 loudspeakers
- Digital I/O addressable SPDT relay box such as NI ER-8/16 with PCI-6503
- External battery holder such as Radio Shack 270-398 (2 x AAA)
Setup Diagram
Get Sequence
Download Sequence (zip file)
Download Sequence documentation (PDF)