The disclosed active noise suppression headphone system is directed to a headphone system that is capable of substantially suppressing high or low frequency interfering noise that penetrate through a headphone earpiece from multiple directions. An external microphone mounted with a housing of a headphone earpiece senses ambient noise outside of the earpiece. The sensed ambient noise may be processed through at least one parallel filter bank arranged in at least one headphone earpiece. Each parallel filter bank may include adaptively linked filters. The output of these filters may be amplified based on weighting factors that are dependent upon the sensed ambient noise and that are generated by a filtered x least mean square circuit. The amplified filtered outputs may be summed to generate an antinoise signal that is in input to a loudspeaker within the headphone earpiece that substantial suppresses the ambient noise before it can be perceived by an end user of the headphones.

The invention provides an active noise reduction system which may be self-contained within a headset of the system, wherein circuitry within the system applies an active noise reduction profile to a signal to the speakers in the headset, to provide active noise reduction to the user of the headset, the system being arranged to receive power both from a power supply external to the system and from a battery of the system and to automatically modify the active noise reduction applied, in dependence on whether or not the system is connected to an external power supply.