Abstract Combustion oscillations are excited by a feedback mechanism which results from the coupling between the flame instability and an acoustic resonance mode of the combustion chamber. The most important event of this mechanism is believed to be the upstream feedback from the acoustic resonance to the initial region of the flame, where new disturbances are generated. A control system has been implemented into a commercial household burner to counteract this upstream feedback. This is achieved by means of pulsating either the fresh air for combustion or the fuel. The actuators are activated by the signal of a sensor measuring the pulsation inside either the combustion chamber or the fresh air supply pipe. Combustion oscillations of this burner have been eliminated altogether, also when two modes were simultaneously excited, without destabilizing other acoustic modes. This results in 35dB reduction in the amplitude of the pressure pulsation. Furthermore, when the combustion process was stable, i.e. no resonances were excited, the use of active control has reduced the broad-band noise by 4dB. The effect of the input sensor location on the control system performance has also been investigated.