Headsets for a Noisy or Loud Office/Call Center

A noisy office creates two separate problems, and most people only solve one of them. A noise-cancelling microphone stops your caller from hearing the chatter around you — but it does nothing for the noise you hear. To block that out for yourself, you need a different feature entirely: passive isolation or active noise cancellation (ANC) built into the earcups. Here's how to solve both sides, from a moderately noisy office up to a genuinely loud call center or industrial environment.

Last updated July 2026

Two noise problems, two different solutions

Almost every professional headset today has a noise-cancelling microphone, which filters out 60–80% of background noise so your caller doesn't hear it. What it doesn't do is block the noise for you. To do that, you need a headset engineered around passive isolation (physically sealing the ear) or active noise cancellation (electronically cancelling ambient sound).

Moderate office noise: passive isolation

If your office isn't overwhelming — a room with 5-6 people talking at once, for instance — a binaural corded headset with good passive isolation is usually enough.

One upgrade worth knowing about: circumaural (surround-the-ear) leather ear cushions can be snapped onto the HW520 to effectively enlarge the earcup, further blocking office noise without buying a different headset. It's a cheap way to squeeze more isolation out of a headset you already own.

Genuinely loud offices and call centers: active noise cancellation

Once the room gets loud enough that passive isolation alone doesn't cut it, ANC is the feature to look for — corded or wireless.

Rugged / industrial-grade: extreme noise environments

For the loudest environments — a call center with hundreds of agents, or industrial and mission-critical settings — a specialized rugged headset is worth considering.

Wireless headsets with ANC for loud offices

Using a Bluetooth headset with a desk phone: the MDA220 setup

Several Bluetooth wireless headsets — the Poly Voyager 4320 and Voyager Focus 2 among them — can also connect to a traditional desk phone using the Plantronics MDA220 adapter, letting one headset cover your desk phone, computer, and mobile phone. Here's how to set it up:

1. On your desk phone, disconnect the receiver from the receiver port.
2. Plug the telephone interface cable (included with the MDA220) into the phone's receiver port.
3. Connect the receiver to the splitter on the interface cable, at the port marked with the telephone icon.
4. Connect the other end of the interface cable to the RJ-9 port on the MDA220.
5. Power the MDA220 by connecting its USB cable to your computer (an AC/DC wall adapter is available if you'd rather not tie up a USB port on a computer).
6. Plug your headset's Bluetooth USB dongle into the USB port on the front of the MDA220.

Once connected, the MDA220 routes calls between the headset and the desk phone, so you keep one headset for calls from any device.

Match the solution to how loud your office actually is: passive isolation for moderate noise, ANC for a genuinely loud floor, and a rugged industrial headset for the most extreme environments. Whichever you need, browse the current range on the wired and wireless headsets collections, or call our team at 877-999-3838 for help choosing.