> Active noise cancellation needs code to execute to work.
No it doesnt. Just in these ones it does.
Active noise cancellation has been a feature way before headphones needed firmware updates.
> Could be that a more efficient algorithm is available for noise cancellation,
I doubt it. This technology, as I stated, has been in headphones for years before they even let you update firmware. Cancelling noise is dead simple anyway, you just invert the waveform. All you need to do is adjust things like timing so you overlay your inversion correctly.
The most likely reason for this update was to fix a bug in something, not to improve an algorithm that has been done for years. Unless they didn't put the decent algo in in the first place due to lazyness.
Either way the testing of the update was rushed or some tester simply did not bother to regression test everything, thus leaving the customer to detect the borked functions.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
