Noise Cancelling Headphones

[INTP]

I have these. They're pretty awesome.

electronic noise canceling sucks

 

[Octarine]

Kaizer - I'd like to point out that there is a difference between the passive noise isolation that sealed headphones and canalphones have and the active electronic noise cancelling feature of "noise cancelling" headphones. Canalphones are rarely "noise cancelling".

if you are going to go with ear buds and about 200$ budget, get ultimate ears super.fi pro5, cant go wrong with those. i have been using them for about 3 years and absolutely love them.

I find them slightly uncomfortable and find the treble to be mediocre. The bass is excellent, but I still don't like them. I liked the rubber buds that they use, but none of them seem to be the right size for me, so they are either uncomfortable or fall out easily.

The only canalphones I've ever liked were Etymotic ER6i, but they're way too flimsy. I bought a pair with a broken cable, but they didn't survive another trip through the wash. But the thin flexible cable reduces the 'microphonics' issue I mentioned earlier.

What I really want is headphones that sound like speakers. So when I mix, the levels don't sound completely wrong on speakers.

 

[INTP]

I find them slightly uncomfortable and find the treble to be mediocre. The bass is excellent, but I still don't like them. I liked the rubber buds that they use, but none of them seem to be the right size for me, so they are either uncomfortable or fall out easily.

The only canalphones I've ever liked were Etymotic ER6i, but they're way too flimsy. I bought a pair with a broken cable, but they didn't survive another trip through the wash. But the thin flexible cable reduces the 'microphonics' issue I mentioned earlier.

What I really want is headphones that sound like speakers. So when I mix, the levels don't sound completely wrong on speakers.

mediocre for what price range? when comparing treble on ue pro5 to shure e3c, i think shure has slight edge on that, but like pretty much any other ear buds in that range, they fail on the other end and the bass on e3c is horrible. not a big surprise since they only got one driver thats tweaked to play high tones well. but the difference isnt all that big and since they fail on bass, i prefer ue. maybe you cant hear the trebles well if they wont fit on your ear properly. did you try to wear them in reverse way? normal way of wearing them is pretty awful, but when you reverse them, they melt in your ear. when you are judging headphones, its not just about loud bass or treble, you need to look at clarity on all frequencies and between them when they are playing at the same time, balance between bass, mid and highs etc. with the shures i couldnt hear the bass, even if it came loud from the source, but with the ultimate ears, i can hear the bass clearly even if its not loud, you can hear highs clear enough to hear what part of the cymbal the drummer is hitting clearly, you can hear the clear difference on different distortion pedals on guitar because you can hear how long the cut offs are and even if the bass is really loud on the song it doesent effect the clarity on highs and you can hear really small detailed sounds even if there is so much going on in the song that you cant notice them all, its pretty funny to discover new things in songs that you have been listening for months. those ue pro5 sound better than most low end hifi speakers and are better than most big earphones at same price range

 

[highlander]

electronic noise canceling sucks

Well, for $120, they were good enough for me. The larger ones that go over your ears give me a headache and are too bulky. Ear buds are uncomfortable for me though I know if you spend a lot, you can get custom ones. I looked at this for example.

http://ultimateears.com/en-us/products/custom

 

[Octarine]

did you try to wear them in reverse way?

I tried both the cable over the ear and below the ear methods. Sounds similar either way. If you don't get a good seal, then you get crap bass.

The problem with canalphones is they have a huge dip in the treble response. You really notice it if you listen to speakers and then use the earphones. I did find that if you use canalphones exclusively, your brain seems to adjust and it starts to sound normal. But then you get a shock when you listen to speakers again.

 

[INTP]

I tried both the cable over the ear and below the ear methods. Sounds similar either way. If you don't get a good seal, then you get crap bass.

The problem with canalphones is they have a huge dip in the treble response. You really notice it if you listen to speakers and then use the earphones. I did find that if you use canalphones exclusively, your brain seems to adjust and it starts to sound normal. But then you get a shock when you listen to speakers again.

i mean switching the left speaker to right speakers place in the cable and right speaker to left and putting the cable over ear as normal. when you use them the normal way the speaker kinda sticks out of your ear and feels weird(at least to me), but when you use them in reverse way the speakers doesent stick out but kinda goes in that deep space in your ear and feels more comfortable.

i assume you figured out to turn off the eq in your player. eq kinda ruins the sound because it modifies the sound curve.

speakers have same kind of differences in sound that headphones or in ear phones, so your ear doesent adjust to canalphones or speakers, but the strength of treble, bass and mid tones

 

[Ghost of the dead horse]

I tested some Nokia headphones and they were pretty whack.

 

[rav3n]

I have the Bose QuietComfort3 headphones. They are nice for flying and I use them for studying, too, because I'm sensitive to noise. Didn't do much comparison shopping, just liked them at the store.

A friend has these so I got a chance to test them in a regular environment instead of an instore setup. Phenomenal. Two thumbs up!