OT: Bose Noise Cancelling Headphones

[Cat3roadracer]

Anyone have these? Which model do you like?

[tiretrax]

Over the ear.

[yakstone]

I use the Over Ear for air travel. They help alot and also discourage the talking heads on either side of you.

[572cv]

over the ear, have had to replace the pads once, but they keep working. On my recent flight, effective in muting both jet engines and screaming babies.

[Ken Robb]

I tried a demo pair in a store and thought they worked very well. OTOH I wonder if the regular over-the-ear phones might not be adequate in most situations.

[rbtmcardle]

QC2 for me.. though I havent used mine in years.. after reading a similar thread here and ordering up some Ultimate Ears!

search the general forum.. there are several really good discussions regarding this

[Bradford]

I used to have them and they worked great. However, they take up a lot of room in your bag and when the battery dies, they stop working.

What are you using them for? If you are traveling, you might want to get something smaller. When mine broke on a trip, I picked up a pair of sony noise canceling earbuds that are almost as good and barely bigger than normal earbuds. I use them on planes, at the gym, and at the office and have no need to go back to the bigger bose.

[Aaron O]

IMO the Bose headphones are overpriced crap and especially poor with portable players. The Bowers Wilkins are roughly the same price and a far superior headphone, the active noise cancellation feature hurts the ear and a decent set of pads eliminates the need for them.

[uno-speedo]

I have the first gen model as a hand-me-down from my bro-in-law. It has the external battery pack - yeah old school.

Great for using at work and on the aeroplane for long haul flights.

[pdmtong]

Bose:
Very expensive
Both around ear and over ear make my ears sweat too much
One more bulky thing to pack
and....I do not like the Bose sound curve...over accentuated highs and lows


I went with an in ear model from shure ($300 or so)
fantastic sound
no battery
small

if you are listneing to 128kps mp3s...there is no need to spend a lot on ear/headphones.

[jmoore]

I liked my Bose QC2's just fine when I had them. Then the extremely flimsy plastic piece that goes over your head broke. I called Bose asking to buy a replacement part and they said "We don't sell replacement parts, you'll have to buy another pair of headphones. We can offer you a $50 discount on a new pair."

FU Bose.

I wear Able Planet nc headphones at work now. They are fine and <$100 new.

[Dave B]

I use The Dr. Dre "Beats" but that is only to help with my street cred...and my wife bought them for me.


Anyway they sound awesome, especially with Eminem and DJ Skrillex!!!

[froze]

The sound quality is not that good though with the Bose, you lose some of the frequency response with noise cancellation headphones, and Bose has always been overpriced.

For the price Sennhesier HD25-1 II corded is highly rated; or RS180 (cordless), the cordless is the best of any cordless model on the market. If price is no object and you want the best sounding headphone for rock then the Grado GS1000I is the only one to get but keep in mind they are slightly colored toward the bass side. Those are all over the ear phones, if you want a compact sport headphone the Sennhesier CX 680 is hard to beat and the price is crazy low, but if you jump way up in price to the Bowers Wilkins C5 you would get a better sounding phone but only a tad better. Another if, if you want the best sounding surround sound type of sound for watching movies or make music sound like it's on a larger sound stage then the Audio Technica ATH-AD900 (not the A900) is excellent but it doesn't have the bass response of the Grado but then again the ATH AD900 is a lot cheaper!

I have headphones in fact have an older pair of Sennhesier HD535 that has a real good neutral tone to them but I really like the presence of the Audio Technica ATH-AD900 a friend of mine has. All in all I don't really like headphones because I prefer to not just hear the music but to also feel it, so I won't be buying another headphone because I rarely listen with the ones I've got.

Now having said all of that here's the clinker...disregard anything anyone says, including me, about what headphones sound the best! Why you scream? Because sound is a personal thing, what sounds good to me may not sound that good to you. The best thing to do is to go into several audio stores with a couple of your favorite CD's representing different types of music and then listen to all the headphones you can and just compare.

[xjoex]

I have the Bose QC-3. They are quite amazing. Work paid for them, so that was cool.

I also have the Bose non-noise canceling in ear, ear buds the MIE2i which work with an iPhone. They are really great. Light weight and fit nicely in your ear.

-Joe

[crownjewelwl]

Got rid of mine cuz they gave me a headache!

Etymotics in ear keep enuf sound out for me

[froze]

Keep in mind too that closed style headphones tend to dampen the sound because air needs to vibrate for good sound and closed systems eliminate that and that's why sound cancelling doesn't work great because in for the sound canceling circuitry to work they need to have a closed headphone. So with any sound cancelling headphone you dampen the frequencies due to the circuitry and again due to the closed headphone design providing you with sub par sound compared to open headphone designs. But sometimes in certain situations you may want a sound cancelling headphone like on airplanes etc, if that's the case in your situation I recommend finding the lowest costing sound cancellation because the headphones are not that accurate and you can still hear background sound it's just muted a bit more then with normal headphones.

[jds108]

First went with a pair of JVC $75 in-ear buds with noise-cancelling tech, but that noise cancelling did almost nothing.

Bought a set of the over-the-ear Bose less than a year and am happy with it, but didn't have anything else to compare them with.... Wish I could have done a comparo but I was in a hurry and they have a store in the local mall so there was no wait to deal with.

The noise cancelling on a plane flight with the Bose unit is pretty impressive IMO, but I wonder if there's another company that makes something that does the job even better.

[froze]

First went with a pair of JVC $75 in-ear buds with noise-cancelling tech, but that noise cancelling did almost nothing.

Bought a set of the over-the-ear Bose less than a year and am happy with it, but didn't have anything else to compare them with.... Wish I could have done a comparo but I was in a hurry and they have a store in the local mall so there was no wait to deal with.

The noise cancelling on a plane flight with the Bose unit is pretty impressive IMO, but I wonder if there's another company that makes something that does the job even better.

Try the Klipsh M40, superior technology over the Bose but you will pay dearly for it, about $350 but if you shop the internet a lot you could get if for less. also the Audio Technica ATH-ANC9 is pretty decent, better then the Bose, but again $350.

Like I said before you need to audition headphones with your favorite music before just getting one.

[scrubadub]

I'm another fan of using Etymotics for travel. Small, light, and no batteries.

[khjr]

I have a set of barely used Bose over the ear that I can sell you if you're interested. They worked great. I bought them because I had a group of noisy people (our expediting team) occupy the spaces surrounding my office. As it turned out, my other co-workers complained so much that the intruding group quickly got moved to the end of the building. So now I no longer need them. If you're interested, try them out at Bose and PM me.

[deechee]

I find the Bose too big, I have had a pair of Panasonic noise cancelling headphones but my favourite are the Nokia BH905i. You can use them with a wire, or without (bluetooth) and they're much much smaller than the Bose. I use them on planes & trains/subway often and very happy with them. I've had mine for at least two years now, with almost daily use and they're still going very strong. Ebay seems to have them at around 100$.

[hairytorus]

I tried a friend's QC 3s and the noise cancelling is amazing in my opinion. I used to just listen to nothing with the noise cancelling turned on.

Any comments about sound quality is purely a personal opinion. You'll just have to try them side-by-side with their competitors.

The knock against them is that they're expensive but you can probably get a significant discount on Ebay or Craigslist. If you absolutely must have them new, ask an MIT alum to buy them for you. They get a discount.

[parris]

There's a decent site called innerfidelity.com that focuses on headphones. It's pretty interesting and the info's good with reviews going from very low cost gear right up to the top of the market.

[BengeBoy]

I do a lot of international travel (frequent 10 to 12 hour flights) and I recently upgraded to the Bose QC-3's after spending several years using less expensive and smaller Sennheiser headphones. For my purposes -- very long plane flights -- I think the Bose are great and I am dismayed that I didn't upgrade earlier.

On long flights I am not after audiophile sound quality -- I am looking for comfort, and something that has good noise cancellation qualities. The Bose work great; once you get used to having them on, you can't stand sitting on a flight without them.

The Bose are pretty large, and the case takes up quite a bit of room in your carry on bag...but the good news is that there is space in the case for your iPod and extra batteries. You can also slip in a few other small electronic accessories like USB sticks or memory cards.

[martinrjensen]

that statement is totally untrueBose:
Very expensive
Both around ear and over ear make my ears sweat too much
One more bulky thing to pack
and....I do not like the Bose sound curve...over accentuated highs and lows


I went with an in ear model from shure ($300 or so)
fantastic sound
no battery
small

if you are listneing to 128kps mp3s...there is no need to spend a lot on ear/headphones.