shhhhhhhhh

So I finally bought some noise cancelling headphones and decided to write a non-audiophile's review of them.



The first time I put them on I was really impressed. I was standing in a quiet apartment and only having put them did I notice that there used to be a sound of the air-conditioning and faint background road noise. The nullification of the sound was quite amazing.

I had heard that the bose quiet comfort headphones were substantially better than other companies' offerings, so while I was in the states I put it to the test. I went into a sony store in boston and tried out their headphones and I also tried out all of the headphones on sale at logan airport. I had heard from a friend of a friend that the best way to save $100 on noise cancelling headphones was to just buy the bose ones first. Having tried at least 5 others I have to agree. The bose phones may well be costly, but if you want it to work, then why bother spending half the amount on something substandard?

So, back to the sound itself. The way the noise cancelling works seems to be quite interesting. Having played around with them a while I have come to the conclusion that they only attempt to cancel repetitive noise. This means that you can have a conversation with someone standing next to you without having to take them off. That itself leads to an interesting effect on a plane; because the noise cancellation is so good, you normalise the volume of your own voice according to the volume of the person you're talking to minus the background noise which means that when you speak they can't hear you because you're talking too quietly.

The best effect from the headphones is when the repetitive background noise itself is loud, so on an airplane the effect is unmatched. I was watching a video with my wife on her ipod on the plane using an audio splitter. She was using in-ear buds while I was using the headphones. I barely needed any volume at all to be able to clearly hear the audio. We switched for a while and it was apparent that the clarity of the headphones was great. Using the earbuds you heard less, less clearly with more background noise and they were less comfortable.

Comfort brings me to another point. They are called quitecomfort for a reason. I wore them for 7 hours without discomfort. They also excel on their packaging. They come in a light but solid case that's moulded for the headphoens and all their accessories, including battery charger, cables and aircraft adapter. Additionally, the moulded portion of the case set aside for the included accessories is only attached with velcro which means it can be removed if you want to make room for your mp3 player. It's nicely styled and it's obvious that they really thought about the packaging.

So, are they worth their price tag? They cost $350 so they have a lot to make up for. Earlier I mentioned that they cancel repetitive background noise extremely well - this is very very true. To get the greatest effect just wear them for 5 minutes then take them off and you're aware of sounds that you didn't know were there. The fact that you didn't know that they were there is my point here. If you didn't know they were there, why did you need it cancelling? The brain already does an awesome job of sound normalisation and cancellation by itself... I'm in 2 minds about whether they justify their price tag. For someone like me, they definitely don't, although at the same I don't feel like I wasted my money. If you struggle with noise on a plane, you can't go wrong, if you don't then it's an expensive toy. Justify it whichever way you choose.

The best way to get the effect without shelling out 350 bucks (unless you break them) is to just borrow mine. I'd be more than happy to lend them to you.