An active noise reducing earphone comprising: a rigid cup-like shell having an inner surface and an outer surface, the inner surface encompassing a cavity with an opening; a microphone arrangement (900, 1002) configured to pick up sound with at least one steerable beam-like directivity characteristic, and to provide a first electrical signal that represents the picked-up sound; an active noise control filter (202, 302) configured to provide, based on the first electrical signal, a second electrical signal; and a speaker (407, 506) disposed in the opening of the cavity and configured to generate sound from the second electrical signal; wherein: the active noise control filter (202, 302) has a transfer characteristic that is configured so that noise that travels through the shell from beyond the outer surface to beyond the inner surface is reduced by the sound generated by the speaker (407, 506); and the microphone arrangement (900, 1002) comprises an array of multiple microphones and a beamformer block, which is electrically connected to the multiple microphones to provide a directivity characteristic of the array of the multiple microphones that includes at least one beam; characterized in that the multiple microphones are irregularly distributed over the outer surface of the shell; and the beamformer block including a modal beamformer and a multiple-input multiple-output system. a rigid cup-like shell having an inner surface and an outer surface, the inner surface encompassing a cavity with an opening; a microphone arrangement (900, 1002) configured to pick up sound with at least one steerable beam-like directivity characteristic, and to provide a first electrical signal that represents the picked-up sound; an active noise control filter (202, 302) configured to provide, based on the first electrical signal, a second electrical signal; and a speaker (407, 506) disposed in the opening of the cavity and configured to generate sound from the second electrical signal; wherein: the active noise control filter (202, 302) has a transfer characteristic that is configured so that noise that travels through the shell from beyond the outer surface to beyond the inner surface is reduced by the sound generated by the speaker (407, 506); and the microphone arrangement (900, 1002) comprises an array of multiple microphones and a beamformer block, which is electrically connected to the multiple microphones to provide a directivity characteristic of the array of the multiple microphones that includes at least one beam; characterized in that the multiple microphones are irregularly distributed over the outer surface of the shell; and the beamformer block including a modal beamformer and a multiple-input multiple-output system. the active noise control filter (202, 302) has a transfer characteristic that is configured so that noise that travels through the shell from beyond the outer surface to beyond the inner surface is reduced by the sound generated by the speaker (407, 506); and the microphone arrangement (900, 1002) comprises an array of multiple microphones and a beamformer block, which is electrically connected to the multiple microphones to provide a directivity characteristic of the array of the multiple microphones that includes at least one beam; characterized in that the multiple microphones are irregularly distributed over the outer surface of the shell; and the beamformer block including a modal beamformer and a multiple-input multiple-output system.