In an aspect, the invention features an active noise reduction device including an electronic signal processing circuit. The electronic signal processing circuit includes a first input for accepting a first signal, a second input for accepting a second signal, an output for providing a third signal, a feed-forward path from the first input to the output, and a feed-forward controller for determining the control parameter by calculating a control signal using the first signal and the second signal and then using the control signal to determine the control parameter. The feed-forward path includes a fixed compensation linear filter and a variable compensation filter having an input for receiving a control parameter that applies a selected linear filter from a family of linear filters that vary in both gain and spectral shape and are selectable by the control parameter.