Ear device with dynamic noise attenuation and generation

An ear device providing enhanced quiet for the user, the ear device comprising:

• at least one speaker respectively positioned in at least one enclosure and configured to direct sound to the user's ears;
• at least one audio capture device for capturing the sound the user's ear would hear;
• a noise-attenuation-and -generation assembly, which receives a signal from the at least one audio capture device via an amplifier and which comprises, at least one noise cancelling controller and a noise masking circuit, which comprises an adaptive spectral noise analyser and generator;
• the at least one audio capture device feed a noise-cancelling controller the sound audible to the user, the noise cancelling controller, after allowing for the passive attenuation by the ear device, generates a signal, which when fed to the at least one speaker substantially cancels this residual sound in the acoustic domain;
• simultaneously the at least one audio capture device feeds the noise masking circuit the sound still audible to the user, the adaptive spectral noise analyser and generator of the noise masking circuit analyses the frequency content of this sound, and having calculated how much the signal will be attenuated by the passive attenuation and active cancellation of the noise cancelling controller, generates a suitable frequency content to dynamically, acoustically mask this residual signal, which is summed with the signal from the noise cancelling controller and sent to the at least one speaker.