You should differentiate between active noise cancelling and passive noise cancelling. Active noise cancelling is what fancy Bose and Sony and (simply put) it

You should differentiate between active noise cancelling and passive noise cancelling. Active noise cancelling is what fancy Bose and Sony and (simply put) it involves cancelling outside sound out by playing the opposite sound. This shouldn't cause hearing damage because the opposite sound waves actually sum to 0, but I'm unaware of any studies about this so who knows. Passive noise cancelling is when your headphones block out outside sounds the same way that typical ear protection does - by physically preventing it from getting inside the ears. Most headphones (excluding open-back headphones) will have some degree of passive noise cancelling just because they need to cover your ear. You can buy headphones designed to passively block as much noise as possible. They are typically called IEMs (in ear monitors) because they are commonly used by musicians on stage to hear their instruments and what not. This kind of noise cancelling will absolutely not damage your hearing or cause pain. In fact, because of the lower ambient noise while listening, you will be able to listen at lower levels. That will cause even less hearing loss and pain. I've got a pair of these [1] Etymotic IEM's. I also use Etymotic's musicians earplugs and the IEM's block out pretty much the same amount of sound and fit in the ear the exact same way. Other notable brands are Shure and Westone. If you want, you can go the extra mile and have custom molds made of your ears. Those will be far more comfortable than universal IEM's and will block more noise, too. [1] https://www.amazon.com/Etymotic-Research-Noise-Isolating-Ear-Earphones/dp/B003S3RFIQ/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1530644361&sr=8-2&keywords=etymotic+iem https://www.amazon.com/Etymotic-Research-Noise-Isolating-Ear...