Executive Over-Ear ANC Headphones Price: $169.99 Shipping Options:: $5 Standard Shipping Estimates: Ships in 1-2 business days (Thursday, Mar 26 to Friday, Mar 27) + transit Condition: New
Bought a pair, at full price, of these in early January that had a huge issue with the ANC. It would induce a very high pitch audible noise, (kind of like a dog whistle if you could hear it), that would make you promptly pull them off your ears. The tone would even change as you tilted your head. I returned them for the equivalent priced studio version that doesn’t fold down as neatly as the executives and have had no issues.
I’ve owned them for about a year and a half and LOVE them with all my heart. The sound is amazing and they are comfortable enough to wear for long listening sessions (think feature-length film, nearly a full flight, etc). The build quality is what you’d expect from a $300 set of headphones (the original MSRP) and they are certainly tough enough for life on the road.
Regarding the Active Noise Canceling (ANC). This is the real deal and it’s ACTIVE. So yes, you will hear an audible white-noise when you first turn on the headphones. You’ll also notice a large percentage of the ambient noise around you disappear as well. Active. Noise. Canceling. Once you start pumping sound through them, that noise fades in to the background and you’re left with clean, well balanced sound quality.
One more note: the headphones only work with the power switch on. In other words, you can’t leave the ANC off and still listen. Make sure to pack an extra set or two of AAA batteries and you’ll be fine. The batteries last a long time but you’d hate to be mid-flight and suddenly go silent.
I bought these as a Christmas present for my college daughter for the same price. Since she was away at college, I bought several other brands of active noise cancelling as well. We compared them all with various music and environments. In a quiet environment, all made a slight hissing white noise sound. Also, while standard background noise is easily cancelled, voices are the most difficult to block completely, which none did 100%.
With that said, these headphones are the ones my daughter chose and I agreed with her selection. Over the ear is more comfortable for long wear times and effective in noise cancelling. She returned to college and loves them. They block out distracting noises and voices, allowing her to study in peace. Regarding sound performance, these are better than any of the others. Sometimes a bit heavy on bass, but using an equalizer can adjust that.
I highly recommend these, especially at this price. Also, they are quality construction. I look at the value that they give in their use, not what it cost to manufacture, as mentioned in other posts. These are worth this price. At full retail however, I would be hesitant and choose one of the others I had tested.
I bought these “new” on Yugster about two months ago at a lower price. I have Bose headphones as well. I tried really hard to like these, but truly no comparison to Bose. This is my third pair of Beats…I’m an idiot for continuing to buy them. Two of the three don’t work properly. Never again
Please understand that the sound quality of these is equivalent to <$50 headphones. Meaning that you’re spending that extra $100 on them as a fashion accessory.
Active Noise Cancelling is overplayed technology and actually hurts your headphone’s ability to adequately reproduce the sounds that you’re playing by requiring the driver to do double duty. Add to the they questionable quality of the driver already in these headphones and you’re looking at a major waste of money.
Check some review sites, by searching for something like “noise cancelling headphone reviews” That will give you some ideas.
It is hard to beat the Bose but they aren’t cheap. You could also consider a closed type of over the ear which would block a lot of noise without any added circuitry for ANC.
Rather than just being a hater, maybe you could advise that doing some research on your own is a good way to decide if these are for you. headfi.org is one great place to look, as is cnet.com and engadget.com.
By being just a hater people will possibly be suspicious that you aren’t being objective and helpful. Just trying to keep it 100.
While I agree that the headphones linked to provide outstanding sound quality, they don’t have noise cancelling. Some background noise can leak through unless the volume is a bit higher. Thus, if you in a noisy environment, the noise cancelling are better, in my opinion and experience. If you’re in a fairly quiet place, the linked to headphones are pretty awesome. I think its a matter of where you plan to use the headphones.
I’ll stick with my earlier comment, that at this price, for noise cancelling headphones, these are a deal. Also, highly rated by consumer reports as well.
If you want to spend this kind of cash on refurbished headphones and get your moneys worth, do some research and/or try some out in stores.
In my case, I was on the fence regarding ANC vs non-ANC for a long time. After reading countless reviews at head-fi and similar sites, I went with these, and could not be any happier with my decision:
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