Advice on a purchase, please.Follow

Hopefully, I will very soon be in the market for a pair of noise-cancelling headphones. I know next to nothing about headphones. I would rather not spend an arm and a leg on them, but, with luck, they will be for work and will be used on an almost daily basis, so I don't want to have to replace them every few months, either.

I do not want earbuds. I'm assuming earbud type headphones are not noise cancelling anyway, but I cannot express how much I hate these things. I guess my ears are tinier than the average human (like another body part AMIRITE?!?!) and earbuds cause me pain that I'd rather not have to live through on a daily basis.

Thanks and rate ups to those who help!

Most noise cancellation headphones are gonna cost you a few dimes. I mean, like TLW mentions, Bose are good but tend to run over $200 a pair. I think Sony makes a pair for half that, but even that seems a bit of a price tag in my opinion.

Bose falls into the same category as Skullcandy, Beats and whatnot in that they sell a brand more than they sell audio equipment. So you're paying a premium for the marketing on them.

Personally I'd go with a good pair of over ear headphones and skip the noise-cancelling because over ear headphones are going to insulate you from a lot of sound anyway and noise-cancelling bumps up the price so you'd either be spending more or compromising on sound quality.

My dad often listens to music on his headphone while my sisters watch shows together and they'll be about 6 feet apart. The few times I've used his headphones there you have to speak up pretty loud to get through the headphones and whatever noise is coming out of them.

So yeah, if you have good quality over ear headphones you'll more than likely be fine.


There's some stuff on it in here. Plus a whole lot more info since it's a buyer's guide.

Edit, if you want to make sure, this one is in their list for entry level: "Shure SRH440, $75-$100. Great isolation, folds for portability, and detachable cable. Clean sound, somewhat neutral." They're not very pretty but that'll keep the noise out.

Edited, Aug 19th 2012 4:43am by Aethien

I like my set of these: http://www.logitech.com/en-us/webcam-communications/internet-headsets-phones/wireless-gaming-headset-g930

Yeah, they are really nice. I'd put them on par with my plantronics wired set in terms of clarity. Plus the microphone is great too if you need to do any recording. I really like the directional aspect for gaming. Makes listening for hill giants sneaking up behind you to squish you that much more entertaining. You could probably get a higher level of fidelity with a really high end wired harmon kardon set or something along those lines, but speaking as a somewhat trained amature musician trombone player with perfect pitch, the sound is excellent as far as I can tell.

Nice, Turin, thanks!!

Kao, rate yourself up twice for me, willya?

I know the Beats (Monster beats) by Dr. Dre are awesome had noise reduction. Just putting them on w/ no music can turn the world down some.

There is also this: Tek4 I thought about getting a pair of these for work, as I wear noise reduction earbuds (I'm allowed to listen to my music/audio books as I don't actually need to talk to others often). I have tried them on (in store) and they seemed to be pretty awesome and do what they say they can do.

I bought some Sennheiser HD 280 Pro's a few months ago and they've been extremely nice to me. I don't know enough on the subject to elucidate, but they're definitely a pair to consider in that price range.