Switched has a new home! Huffpost Tech.

Click here to visit the new home of Switched!

Hot on HuffPost Tech:

See More Stories
AOL Tech

How to Silence the Sound of Vuvuzelas

by Terrence O'Brien on June 14, 2010 at 05:30 PM

lots of vuvuzelas driving us insane
Vuvuzelas, those long plastic horns, are inescapable at this year's World Cup. The stadium horns, as they're sometimes known, are as integral a part of the soccer experience in South Africa as fight songs are in the U.K. Outside of South Africa, though, the horns are regarded largely as an annoyance. The sound generated by the constant blaring of the "instruments" has been compared to the sound of an enormous swarm of bees.

It looks as if there will be no salvation coming from World Cup CEO Danny Jordaan, who told ESPN that the only way the horns would be banned was if they were used for purposes other than making noise. There is little that players on the field can do to combat the constant din, but fans at home are turning to a wide range of tactics to drown out the horns. The most obvious one is to simply hit the mute button, but this sadly takes most of the celebratory atmosphere with it. Pocket-Lint has highlighted tips circulating on Twitter that suggest adjusting your TV's equalizer to cut out the 300Hz band, though this will not be available on all TVs and will also make commentator's voices a little hollow.

We also tried out the Anti Vuvuzela Filter, a $3.60 (€2.95) file specially designed to cancel out the sound of vuvuzelas. Unfortunately, the phase-inverted MP3 appeared to have no effect in our tests, and was actually more obnoxious sounding than the horns themselves. (The site is also a tad shady-looking, and we can't guarantee you won't end up infected with malware.)

Sadly, it looks like you have only one completely effective choice if you can't deal with the sound of the vuvuzelas; hit the mute button. Rumors have arisen suggesting watching the game with noise-canceling headphones as an option, but we haven't tried ourselves (we'd be curious if anyone has -- let us know). Although if you're the type who loves to make everyone within earshot hate you, the Vuvuzela 2010 iPhone app lets you take the sound of brain cells committing suicide with you everywhere. [From: Pocket-Lint]

Tags: annoyances, football, NoiseCancelling, soccer, top, vuvuzela, vuvuzelas, world cup 2010, WorldCup, worldcup2010

Comments

2

HuffPost AOL Social News Most Popular