Noise Cancelling Headphones

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yeah I know, i know two fanboys of them, and I laugh at them about the fact the one went through 3 pairs of them. senns low-ends sound better in my opinion. In the future if I get enough funds together I am gonna get the sennheiser recording setup, which all together runs like $1200 on amazon. Yeah I am a fan of them, never had issues with their products, which is a big selling point for me.

They're great. I have Sony MDR-NC60.

Wow, thanks for all the recommendations! I have now learned a lot about head phones, so thanks a lot!
er, well I suppose I'd be looking for circum aural ones, because my ears are rather small. I like or can tolerate low pitched noises like machine noises. I dislike the sounds of humans speaking. The unpredictability of team-speak and Ventrilo drive me nuts, so I'd like a set of thingies to help block that out. Also, when traveling, listening to music I heard can be helpful, as my ears are really sensitive and I'm easily distracted by many things. Music helps me keep focused.

It looks like there are a lot of excellent choices. I shall be shopping! Thank you all for your input!!

I picked up a pair of Sennheiser HD201S headphones yesterday (Best Buy, $30) to let kick around my lab. For the price, they're great, but they aren't very good at blocking out sound at all (I'm the same with your distaste of the sound of voices). I'd really suggest spending your money on as expensive of a pair of comfortable earbuds as you can afford. Sony's have always worked great for me for blocking out noise while remaining comfortable for long periods of use. For the past year I've been using a pair that cost me $55, and they've worked perfectly in terms of blocking out sound (including screaming kids on a bus), portability (I don't go anywhere without them and my mp3 player), and comfort (I've worn them for 12+ hours straight without the slightest sign of discomfort).

Ah. That's something to think about. I had kept my mind closed to earbuds because I have small-ish ears, so earbuds generally haven't worked out in the past. I guess the problem was that they were cheap. What do people think of Logitech?

Scratch the Logitech. I'm seriously considering sony. If anyone can give me feedback on earbuds versus headphones, that would be awesome. Please and thank you.

The rubber gussets in ear-buds appear to have a standard fitting (at least on the brands I have tried), so you can use whichever size of gusset fits best on whichever ear-bud sounds best. Poor quality earphones do sound plain nasty, while good quality ear-buds can sound excellent - I have some Sony ones (not noise-cancelling) that I use at night that are both comfortable and sound good, with a reasonable low-frequency response.

I find the isolation of ear-buds can be a bit disconcerting, but on the other hand they are very, very effective at cancelling higher frequencies and human voice. I have not yet seen an ear-bud review that claims that they are as good as closed-cup headphones with active noise cancelling, such as the over-priced Bose.

i just use my DJ headphones they muffle out everything

With the Sony earbuds, they typically give you three different sizes of silicon rubber gussets, so you can pick the size most comfortable for you (I prefer the medium size). They're so much more comfortable than the cheap ones, which just have the hard plastic against your ear that provide no level of comfort or a sound seal.

For the price range of $60, the over-ear headphones will probably give you better bass and a slight amount more comfort, but the earbuds will give you the best noise-isolation and clearer sound (from my experience). If you've never used the silicon rubber gussets before, it may take some time to get used to, but that should only take a couple of days.

A little update. I know they're way out of your price range, but I just acquired a pair of Bowers & Wilkins P5 headphones. I'm just blown away by them. They have amazing passive noise canceling, I don't even have to blast my music to completely drown out the noise around me, nor listen to particularly loud music (i.e. death metal). The clarity of the music is fantastic, too. I'm hearing parts of songs I've never noticed before even though I've been listening to them for years (Hoppipola by Sigur Ros is the best so far). They're admittedly not that great for club-type music, as this is more for rich instrumental bass than electronic rattle-your-skull bass, but they're extraordinary for classical-type music (Beethoven's 5th is particularly grand).

Active noice-cancelling headphones never have good sound, so get them only if you think closed headphones won't cut it.

I've tried Sennheiser HD 280, and the being-inside-a-barrel boom effect was too much for me to handle. I settled for AKG K 272. They block enough noise with a minimal barrel effect - it's more like being in a studio. I wear them in the car to block the humming noise.

My cousin gave me his Sennheiser HD800s because he didn't use them much. THey sound great and isolate really good. I always have them plugged into my Cmoy amplifier which is plugged into my Cowon J3 MP3 player. Best headphones ever and they made me re-rip over half my music because I heard every little imperfection.

Thinking of getting a pair of Sennheiser's as a gift, so this was a useful thread for me to use.

I can say that the Phillips ones do really hurt, but the sound is okay.

Get headphones from Sennheiser. You will never hear your music the same way again.