I was thinking of getting headphones, beyond the Apple earbuds I’m currently using. And I was thinking of something with active noise-cancelling technology (good for noisy mass transit and airplanes), over-ear, bluetooth, good sound quality, of course.
I went to Amazon and brought up a list of highly rated devices with this description and was surprised and perplexed: most of what I saw was in the $50-$100 range, but there some real outliers (Bose, Sony) running around $350.
What’s the difference between $75 headphones and $350 headphones?
I have some on-ear Sony noise cancellers; they appeared to work as well as the Bose but at the time they were 1/3 the price. Store test only.
They work great for reducing (not cancelling!) jet engine noise. Over ears would probably work better, but I haven’t felt the need to spend more money yet.
I bought Bose QuietComfort 35 headphones a year ago or so, mostly for use on airline flights. Last week, I used them to watch movies and TV on a flight, and found that they really do make a difference. Yes, they’re expensive, but they do work.
+1 on the QC35. At my old place with a single plank wooden wall and jalousie windows between us, my neighbor would play videogames and it was loud. Put on the headphones and all outside noise completely disappeared. I used to wear them for hours at a time and they were very comfortable.
Fortunately my new place is dead quiet. Brick walls and a steel door keep my place dead quiet.
Big-time headphone user here, both at home and when traveling, but I don’t claim to be an expert. I DO have a nice collection of home headphones and headphone amplifiers, so I have a basis for comparison. Finally, I travel a lot and I use headphones on planes (and in terminals) almost the whole time. One reason is that I wear hearing aids now (misspent youth, I guess) and the noise on planes and in terminals is extremely distracting.
I currently use a pair of Sony WH1000XM2s. I’ve tried many, many NC headphones, but the Sonys have the best combination of fit (they fit comfortably over my RIE hearing aids while many NC headphones do not), sound sealing ability, sound quality, and noise cancellation. The difference between an inexpensive pair of NC headphones, especially those that sit on or in your ear instead of enclosing it, and a nice pair like the Sonys is astounding to most people.
The Sonys also have a very nice feature set, including both BT and wired operation and touch controls for volume, muting, track forward and backwards, and so forth. They are supported by an app (Android and Apple) that even balances pressure.
Some of the Bose headphones come close to the Sonys, and may even exceed them in terms of noise cancellation, but none of the Bose I tried could match the WH1000XM2s in other areas. Other NC headphones in the same price range usually don’t even compare to the Sonys and the Boses.
TL;DR: Yes, the more expensive headphones are worth the money.
BTW, I thought about it a lot before buying the Bose QCII headphones, in particularly looking for the best price. But I found that these headphones were never discounted anywhere, including Best Buy or Amazon.
A headphone may claim to have noise cancelling, but its effectiveness varies quite a bit. I’ve had Bose, Sony and a couple of cheaper brands, and the difference is dramatic. Bose is so effective that it actually makes air travel less fatiguing. My Sony (at least 7 or 8 years old) is OK, it lets me listen to music at a lower volume, but a lot of high-frequency noise still comes through. (I hear current model SONY is as good as Bose, but they also cost almost as much now.) On cheap ones you can barely tell it’s doing anything.
The QC35 is sometimes discounted below $300, and I think I’ve seen it as low as $260. The QC25 (wired version) is currently $180 on Amazon (list price $200) and I saw it for $120 during the holiday season.
I personally prefer the wired version so I can plug it into the in-flight entertainment system on airline flights.
Yes, the current Sony WH1000XM2 (or XM3) is indeed every bit as good as the Bose as far as NC. Some people prefer one to the other and there ARE some slight differences, but they are really the only two NC headphones worthy of comparison in that area.
I have an older set of Sony NC headphones (MDR-ZX770BN) and they do a decent job of noise cancelling, but not on par with the Boss QC35. But I have read that the newer models are better.
One thing I do not like about my headphones is that the noise cancellation only works with Bluetooth. If I use a cord, the noise cancelling is turned off. Which sucks, because Bluetooth sucks. ZonexandScout does the WH1000XM2 noise cancellation work when using a cord?
Yes, the Sony NC works when you use a cable to connect. You can no longer do active calibration, which requires the BT link, but some other features (like Mute/Attention) still work.
I’ve been using the Sennheiser PXC 550, which I went for over the Sony WH-1000xm2 because of durability concerns( lots of complaints about that Sony headband snapping ). I’ve got that old former-audio enthusiast bias against Bose gear, so I don’t mess around with them much outside of the system that came with my car that I’m also not a huge fan of ;).
Anecdotally the noise-canceling on the Sennheisers is fine, but as that really isn’t a feature that interests me much as I just use them in-home for TV. So I’m probably not the best judge. In auditory terms they are also fine, though distinctly inferior to my wired, open ear HD 600 set. But I knew that going in - you make sacrifices for wireless.
I’ve used the Bose NC headphones for years. I upgraded to the bluetooth model once those came out. I’ve tried all kinds of others, but the Bose works the best IMHO.
Costco has a less expensive price. I found a pair for my son there.
which are no longer sold, because I wanted something very small and light for travel. They feature perfectly okay sound quality, and enough noise cancellation that I can hear the dialog of movies on the airplane without blasting out my eardrums. I’ve been very happy with them.
I don’t like stuff in my ears, so ear buds are not an option for me. And I don’t want to block out all sound – I want to hear the flight attendant when she asks what I want for supper. I just want to block enough of the engine noise that I can hear other stuff.
Of course a noise-cancelling headset has to have a microphone to pick up ambient noise, but from what I’ve read, you can’t use it to pick up your voice, so I wouldn’t be heard on a conference call.
One caveat about the QC35 is that the battery isn’t replaceable, either by the user or Bose. According to Bose, the battery can be charged 500 times before it retains only 80% of the charge. Once the battery is dead, I believe it can still be used in the wired mode.
There is a small discount (reportedly 10-15%) when buying a replacement headset and supposedly one company offers battery replacement for $100.
I’ve had mine for almost two years, but haven’t used it for over a year. Charging it up right not to be sure everything is okay.