Noise cancelling earphones

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swindoll

swindoll

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Do you guys have any suggestions? My roommates are driving me cray.
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look into earplugs, IMO.

As soon as you find a pair which fit your ears comfortably, they are less obtrusive, more comfortable, and less expensive than noise-cancelling headphones.
 
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Spinach Dip said:
look into earplugs, IMO.

As soon as you find a pair which fit your ears comfortably, they are less obtrusive, more comfortable, and less expensive than noise-cancelling headphones.
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egg zactly
 
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I've been looking at some of those headphones for the TV so the lady can watch her lame chick flicks while I do homework :laugh::p

Kind of the opposite idea of what you are looking for though... I used ear plugs for mcat study and haven't gone back, I don't like hearing the fuzzy sound of my brain buzzing
 
I have the Bose QC25 Noise cancellation headphones... Super comfortable, the noise canceling is amazing, the sound quality is great. Maybe not as good as Beats but the noise canceling is definitely better. The only downside is the price tag. 300$ ... If you can shell out the dough. I'd highly recommend them. I bought them to use in med school. Hopefully I'll get in this cycle *crosses fingers*

NOTE: what I recommended is probably top of the line as far as noise canceling goes.
 
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If I were you I'd go with a pair of regular headphones. You pay extra for "noise canceling" technology and a generally poorer sound quality to boot. Also for the love of god don't buy Beats. Don't be that person.
 
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I have some pretty cheap ($20-$30) earbuds I got at the airport that actually do a great job. Just find some with the rubber attachment that squishes into your ears, and that should be good enough.
 
Dannyk1992 said:
I have the Bose QC25 Noise cancellation headphones... Super comfortable, the noise canceling is amazing, the sound quality is great. Maybe not as good as Beats but the noise canceling is definitely better. The only downside is the price tag. 300$ ... If you can shell out the dough. I'd highly recommend them. I bought them to use in med school. Hopefully I'll get in this cycle *crosses fingers*

NOTE: what I recommended is probably top of the line as far as noise canceling goes.
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Beats are ugly fashion accessories. Bose are for people who previously had beats and decided they actually wanted to try music. They're horribly overpriced and have very mediocre sound quality.

drdoom12 said:
If I were you I'd go with a pair of regular headphones. You pay extra for "noise canceling" technology and a generally poorer sound quality to boot. Also for the love of god don't buy Beats. Don't be that person.
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This is correct. Avoid the 'noise canceling' stuff and just get a good set of isolating headphones. Look to brands like Sennheiser, Denon, etc. - not the brands you can get at Best Buy.
 
swindoll said:
Do you guys have any suggestions? My roommates are driving me cray.
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If you have the money, custom in-ear-monitors are pretty sweet. Most have a passive noise attenuation rating of -20dB or more.

You play some music on top of that, and they could be yelling inches behind you and you wouldn't hear them.

But, that doesn't come cheap, (at least where i got mine) they start out at ~$400 for the basic model; their flagship models are 2K+.
 
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I've been buying audio technica for several years. Great sound + hardware quality. You can get a good pair for between $100 and $300. I will say, one of my roommates is a trained guitarist and plays all the time. Foam earplugs AND headphones is a match made in heaven.
 
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I'd recommend the ATH-M150s (although I think they've been recently replaced by another model). They don't have active noise cancellation, but they're over-the-ear headphones that have pretty thick padding. Both of those mechanisms block out a pretty good chunk of sound. When playing music, you effectively have noise cancelation. They're also pretty good headphones to boot - easily the best headphones I've owned. I can't recommend them enough. They were what I used exclusively for step 1 studying.
 
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Noise cancelling ear phones don't actually cancel out human voices very well. Just FYI. Ear plugs or over-ear headphones may be a better choice. Best yet is to go else to find your own sanctum.
 
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caffeinemia said:
Noise cancelling ear phones don't actually cancel out human voices very well. Just FYI. Ear plugs or over-ear headphones may be a better choice. Best yet is to go else to find your own sanctum.
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Are you talking about iems like etymonics? Since those seem to provide absolutely absurd amounts of isolation without playing music even. My normal IEMs are decent isolation with double flanged tips. Both are miles ahead of closed headphones in my experience, but you need the deep insertion (har har) to get a decent bass response + isolation.
 
I also suggest ear plugs. I own a pair of Audio-Technica ATH-ANC9 which were $300 at the time. They work well but nothing compared to foam ear plugs as linked above.
 
This is a good resource for finding good headphones: http://www.head-fi.org/f/4/headphones-full-size

In my opinion, getting nice quality headphones is a good investment bc you'll be using them a lot as a student. Also, noise cancellation isn't worth that bump in price IMO (Bose for example)...some over the ear headphones have enough clamp to block out most noise, and some in bud headphones block out enough noise as well.

HD-280s, like mentioned above, are good headphones that are considered to be one of the best for under 100 bucks. My brother has these and they isolate noise pretty well. Also can't go wrong with over the ear headphones from Audio Technica.

I have in bud headphones from Shure and they block out noise better than earplugs. So that may be something to consider
 
You are not going to find better headphones then the Shure earbuds. If you get the SE535 or greater you will literally block out all noise passively and hear the highest quality audio. They are the best, hands down.
 
If you are looking for complete silence (rather than background music to drown out your friends), I have to reiterate the foam earplugs + noise canceling headphones idea posted above.

Foam earplugs are cheap as dirt (the only trick is finding a model that fit your ears), and a decent pair of noise-canceling headphones (you don't have to spend $300!) can combine to make you deaf to even the nextdoor neighbor's drum solos.
 
Spinach Dip said:
If you are looking for complete silence (rather than background music to drown out your friends), I have to reiterate the foam earplugs + noise canceling headphones idea posted above.

Foam earplugs are cheap as dirt (the only trick is finding a model that fit your ears), and a decent pair of noise-canceling headphones (you don't have to spend $300!) can combine to make you deaf to even the nextdoor neighbor's drum solos.
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BTW, a quick google search into industrial-PPE ear protection revealed that a company named Titus makes the highest rated earmuffs on the market. 37db reduction for ~$20.

Given that the combinations I tried before had a lower rating, I can only imagine how effective some 30db earplugs + 37 db muffs combination would be.


(And the savings to your wallet would be huge, compared to some of the options I've seen thrown around in this thread..... If you are one of those people who isn't made of money I suppose....)
 
Spinach Dip said:
BTW, a quick google search into industrial-PPE ear protection revealed that a company named Titus makes the highest rated earmuffs on the market. 37db reduction for ~$20.

Given that the combinations I tried before had a lower rating, I can only imagine how effective some 30db earplugs + 37 db muffs combination would be.


(And the savings to your wallet would be huge, compared to some of the options I've seen thrown around in this thread..... If you are one of those people who isn't made of money I suppose....)
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The earmuff over - ear plug combo is not quite additive. -30dB and -25dB =/= -55dB.
 
coolcucumber91 said:
This is a good resource for finding good headphones: http://www.head-fi.org/f/4/headphones-full-size

In my opinion, getting nice quality headphones is a good investment bc you'll be using them a lot as a student. Also, noise cancellation isn't worth that bump in price IMO (Bose for example)...some over the ear headphones have enough clamp to block out most noise, and some in bud headphones block out enough noise as well.

HD-280s, like mentioned above, are good headphones that are considered to be one of the best for under 100 bucks. My brother has these and they isolate noise pretty well. Also can't go wrong with over the ear headphones from Audio Technica.

I have in bud headphones from Shure and they block out noise better than earplugs. So that may be something to consider
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If you get full-sized cans, know the difference between open and closed headphones before you buy, or else you will be back where you started.
 
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U Wot M8 said:
I recommend beats by dre - they are cool and look nice and have killer bass
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u wot m8

I have a pair of Beats that I use occasionally. For the price they cost they are garbage. There are millions of headphones you can buy with orders of magnitude better sound quality and durability. The main reason I don't use the Beats is because I'm afraid the band is going to crack in half.
 
0kazak1 said:
The earmuff over - ear plug combo is not quite additive. -30dB and -25dB =/= -55dB.
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Yeah....But I never studied acoustics so I have no idea how to otherwise calculate it.

:shrug:

I wasn't really trying to give a scientific appraisal of volume reduction.
 
Spinach Dip said:
Yeah....But I never studied acoustics so I have no idea how to otherwise calculate it.

:shrug:

I wasn't really trying to give a scientific appraisal of volume reduction.
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Didn't study acoustics either, but I am interested in firearms and protecting my hearing, the two combined does offer some increased protection but not as much as you would think, then again the dB scale is logarithmic.
 
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