Technology Guides

You’ve now bought that expensive mp3 player and you’ve loaded all your songs onto it, yet when you go to listen to them it doesn’t come out as nice as you’d expected. That’s because you are using those crummy old earbuds the “Big Companies” gave you. Most people are foolish enough to keep on using them, but I on the other hand have myself a pair of Sony headphones that do a good job of canceling out the noise. However, they aren’t true noise canceling headphones as they just try to do the job with padded ear muffs. They do provide much better sound then your average earbuds and headphones but sadly I’ll have to give them away this summer as my brother wants them back. So today I’ll review 3 of my favourite headphones as replacements. All of them aren’t new to the game except for Creative but they are all respected brands (Creative, Sony, and Bose). They all offer different qualities: the Creative is more value based, whereas the Sony and Bose give you more, but at a higher price tag. The Sony offers over the ear headphones, whereas Bose offers on the ear.

Bose QuietComfort 3

Bose set out to make smaller, more versatile headphones when compared to its sibling, the QuietComfort 2, which is still on sale by the way. They did that but had to sacrifice a bit of sound quality, although not much to make a huge impact. The headphones offer memory foam as an offset to reduce the effect of switching to an on ear design. It does press on your ears a bit more but I find it’s a better and more comfortable fit than the over the ear since I wear glasses. Like the Sony model, the QuietComfort 3 only offers the noise canceling feature turned on, so if your battery runs out, no music. One thing to note though is that the QC3’s come with a rechargeable lithium-ion battery that they say will last you 20 hours on a full charge and it comes out for easy recharging. That’s plenty for a plane trip or just walking the streets of downtown. $350.

Bose Quiet Comfort 3

Sony MDR-NC500D

These headphones are obviously bigger than the QC3 and compare in size to most noise canceling headphones like the Creative Aurvana. They offer a slick, black design, and over the ear comfort (for some). The cushy padding along the cups and adjustable band make for quality comfort but all this does not necessarily justify it’s price tag of $450. Like the QC3, you are forced to use the noise canceling feature all the time but with approx. 16 hours of battery life and options to extend it with a battery pack that support 2AA batteries, that feature shouldn’t be a worry, although I do admit, it’s another gadget to charge and not something that’s burned into our brains like charging cell phones, and even those we forgot to charge once in a while. The big plus on these headphones is the noise canceling feature that surpasses the Bose.

“it uses what’s known as feedback type noise canceling, meaning the microphone is placed near the ear rather than on the outside of the earcup (known as “feedforward”). This allows the unit to better analyze what sounds are actually coming straight at the eardrum, whereas the feedforward has to estimate what the sound will be once it reaches the ear. Thus, a feedback type can more accurately adjust to environmental noise, increasing the effectiveness of the noise cancellation.” -CNET

There’s a digital aspect to it as well where the digital equalizer and software engine analyze the outside to noise to better understand what type of noise isolation to use whether it be airplane, train, or downtown. These two features of noise cancellation, are the reasons why Sony prices this model so high.

Creative Aurvana X-Fi

This last headphone model is not necessarily the worst, but it does have the lowest price tag which will have some readers smiling. This is more of a value based buy but it has some very good features that would make it seem that you aren’t skimping on the product. The bad part of these headphones is they aren’t as portable and they let a lot of sound get out for all the world to hear. They, however do a good job at enhancing the bass through Creatives X-Fi technology and do a good job to keep other noises out. The main difference maker on this model, is that it offers the ability to switch between noise canceling feature on or off. This means you can listen to music without the feature and if you’re out of battery. I believe that these offer slightly better sound than the Sony and Bose but only because of the size. $250.

Creative Aurvana

Conclusion

From what I’ve written hear, you can probably tell what I’m going to say here. All my choices here are fairly expensive so if you are in the market for noise canceling headphones and can pay this much here is what you should buy. For buyers interested in a compact set for use with mp3 players and music phones, the Bose QuietComfort 3s’ are the way to go (Bose offers adapters for music phones). For buyers interested in a value based set of headphones and don’t mind the size, then the Creative Aurvana X-Fi headphones are for you. Finally if you are a buyer who is really picky about keeping outside noise out then the Sony set is destined for you. Happy Buying!

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