I bought these to cancel out the background noise while mowing my lawn.

However, having tried them, I can state that they are fantastic at completely silencing that 'air plane' background noise

I just want a little background noise while studying

They are not like over-the-ear headphones in that you can still hear enough of the background noise, but they're not supposed to be!

The ANC of this device will block out the background noise of the AC (my most common use case) and will decrease the overall noise of voices and other discrete sounds, overall it does sound like you enter a much quieter room

You cannot really tell if the ANC is on or off when you are in a quiet environment but when there is a constant background noise, it comes alive

They canceled out little to none of the background noise.

However, having tried them, I can state that they are fantastic at completely silencing that 'air plane' background noise

The Noise cancelling is a question mark -- not much difference noticed on background noise (such as engine noises) when ANC is activated

The active noise cancelling provides a noticeable difference and is enough to drown out background noise in a grocery store or in the street (although cars are still audible, but quieter)

I did some air travel last week, I kept on pushing the ANC button just to see if they were really working as

The company never reimburse me for the shipping as they promised to