"Idiot" needs help with headphones

Two Questions:
1. Price Range?
2. Have you ever used noise-canceling headphones before. If you have not, there are some precautions. Some, including myself, find that using them creates a painful "white-noise" effect producing headaches and other pains.

1) Noise cancelling headphones are not worth it IMHO. They do produce unpleasant noise and degrade your source sound. If you get these you will hate them if environment quiet.

2) Get over the ear headphones than enclose the ear. I've got Sennheiser HD 595's I love. Not as portable, but sounds gerat. Sennheiser makes less expensive headphone that should surround your ears and block out outside noise without resorting to electronic noise cancelling.

Get in ear phones, they're amazing for planes.

thenumbersrbad said:

I'm thinking about getting the white beats by dr dre...the noise canceling ones more so over the Bose because of the ability to answer calls...anyone have any thoughts on those?

The only reason I'd get the noise canceling beats is cause I want the ones thy cup all the way around the ear

Click to expand...

Personally I'd much rather get a pair of in ear phones, they block much more noise. Then I might get a good full size pair. But noise canceling headphones are kinda odd, they try to do both things at once and ultimately not that well.

Don't get the beats, there are much better headphones. In this market, price certainly does not dictate quality. If I were you I might get a pair of full size Shure SRH440s (around ear, what I want to own someday) and a pair of etymotic er6is for planes and stuff (in ear) because they cancel about 20dB of noise more than the Bose or Beats. (Like going from a person talking to you to a quiet library according to this chart).

I see that you want full size headphones, but I think in ear phones would suit you much better. Really, they're not that bad. Actually, they're pretty good .

Sony MDR-EX38ip in ear with iphone controls, the remote/mic works exactly the same way as the original apple earbuds for iphone.
Good sound quality and good noise reduction.