Noise cancelling headphones

[Guest petec500]

I'm researching noise-cancelling headphones - does anyone have any views/advice/comments? My budget is limited to under £30 so i'm not expecting top-notch quality, but something better than the cr@p ones they charge you £2.50 or whatever for on flights.

Any recommendations?

[Guest Shadowfixeruk]

I'm researching noise-cancelling headphones - does anyone have any views/advice/comments? My budget is limited to under £30 so i'm not expecting top-notch quality, but something better than the cr@p ones they charge you £2.50 or whatever for on flights.

Any recommendations?

I picked up a pair of Sony MDR-NC11A's from Sainsburys a couple of months ago for under £30 - top notch they are my second pair - the 1st i bought of ebay for about £60 (when they retailed at around £100) but not sure if they were *proper sony* but they did work.

Also just did a quick search on ebay again - another seller has them for £34 - which is still a bit of a bargain i think :D

HTH

SF

[Guest WearTheFoxHat]

Tesco's had some cracking Sony ones too which I bought for the other half. I've got some Shure's ... but she doesn't use headphones that much!

[Guest iharkins]

I'm researching noise-cancelling headphones - does anyone have any views/advice/comments? My budget is limited to under £30 so i'm not expecting top-notch quality, but something better than the cr@p ones they charge you £2.50 or whatever for on flights.

Any recommendations?

You could do a lot worse than these ...

Sennheiser CX300 for £20.99 (delivered)

I bought a pair of them for my girlfriend a while ago and they're pretty good. If you want to make a big step up from these you'll have to pay more but then you'll get something much better like these ...

Shure SE110 for £53.99 (delivered)

[Guest petec500]

Interesting vote for the Sennheisers - although not active noice-cancelling, i've been reading a bit and types like these that fit snugly into the ear canal are as good if not better than some of the cheaper active types - plus you're getting better sound quality all round. Perhaps that's the way to go.

Edited August 8, 2008 by petec500

[Guest Shadowfixeruk]

Interesting vote for the Snnheirsers - although not active noice-cancelling, i've been reading a bit and types like these that fit snugly into the ear canal are as good if not better than some of the cheaper active types - plus you're getting better sound quality all round. Perhaps that's the way to go.

The Sony's are the snug fit with noise cancelling :D

[Guest petec500]

I picked up a pair of Sony MDR-NC11A's from Sainsburys a couple of months ago for under £30 - top notch they are my second pair - the 1st i bought of ebay for about £60 (when they retailed at around £100) but not sure if they were *proper sony* but they did work.

Also just did a quick search on ebay again - another seller has them for £34 - which is still a bit of a bargain i think :D

HTH

SF

On your advice, i bought two pairs of the Sony MDR-NC11A's from Sainsburys for £20 each - seemed like a good deal - cheaper than i could get on ebay. Haven't managed to test their noise reduction capabilities yet, but they sound good enough to me.

Thanks to all for your views.

[Guest LessThanSte]

I sport a pair of Creative HN700 headphones that i think are a dream. The sound is a touch on the bassy side (as with most creative devices), but i twin them with a Creative Zen Vision and have no issues with distortion at all.

They also come with a lovely gold plated cable that is no more than a couple of mil thick. Sadly, i lost that, and have to now use a great big cable from Maplin with worse sound quality. Sad times!

You can pick them up for about 25 quid from Amazon!

(oh, the noise cancellation is pretty top notch, i use them on the train to uni every day and regularly go flying past the stop i was meant to get off at because i couldnt hear the train and wasnt paying attention. They use 2 AAA batteries that with decent usage (i.e. an hour or so on the train each day plus maybe a couple of hours whilst doing work) lasted for about 2 months. The only downside is that they dont have an auto off function so if you forget to turn the noise cancellation off (or it gets turned on whilst in a bag or something), the batteries will be dead by the next time you use them!

[Guest petec500]

Quick update since i've returned from my Canada holiday - those Sony's worked a treat! Using them both with the in-flight entertainment system and our ipod on the flights, the sound was pretty amazing considering the amount of background noise. I found had to keep tweaking them in my ears to make sure there was a complete seal but when there was, i could barely hear the engines at all.

Thanks again for the tip - great buy!