As you know the active noise cancellation technology used in many application such as protection of aircraft cabins and car interiors to reduce engine noise also some headphones use this feature to reduce unwanted ambient sounds.
Actually I don't know the details of how this feature works, but I do know that it has input (microphone) that receives noise waves, control unit that invert the incoming noise waves and output (speakers) to emit inverted noise waves and therefore they will cancel each other.
What I'm not understanding is that If we considered the sound waves are traveling in air, then the inverted noise waves emitted from the speaker will reach the listener before they combine with the original noise waves so they cancel each other while the inverted noise waves are traveling in a solid-media (components of the microphone, speaker, etc.) faster than the original noise waves traveling in air.
I'm I missing something or there is another feature they use to adjust the speed of sound in the active noise cancellation?
