Sennheiser PXC 250 Active Noise Canceling Headphones

I am looking forward with dread to four months of apartment renovations starting soon and I was looking for ways to keep my sanity during all the racket and mayhem. The idea of Noise Canceling headphones seemed just the ticket to help me keep from losing my mind.

I tried the Bose, the Sony, and the Sennheiser in a comparative listening bout. Overall, I liked the Bose a little better than the Sennheiser, but not enough to justify the increased price. Both blew away the Sony, which just doesn't sound that good and conducts too much movement noise up into the headphones. The Sennheiser are closed ear headphones, very lightweight and comfortable to wear unless you are exercising, where they tend to get a bit too hot. The snug fit of the earphones helps block out sound, even without the noise-canceling feature. But with the feature the amount of noise that is reduced or effectively canceled is remarkable. Most of the daily rumble of Manhattan is removed from your listening experience,...Read more

After many hours of online researching and trips to Ultimate Electronics, Circuit City, and a few other electronic stores I decided on this pair. Online customer reviews aside, I highly recommend a visit to the music store, electronics store, wherever. If you are going to spend a hundred dollars on anything try it out first. There is a huge diversity out there in ear cup size, sound, and build quality. I personally was looking for a good set of headphones that I could use on a plane. These more than exceeded my expectations for that purpose. If you are looking for a set to use in the office at your desk, these are not for you. You can get a better set at half the price. I'd recommend something with closed cups and passive noise reduction if your office is noisy. Most active cancellers don't help with this problem. The same holds true for most other noisy environments. These actually work best with low frequency noise, i.e. the plane. I also tried them in our computer room...Read more

I bought these Sennheiser's after reading a recent CNET review that rated them "best" in this price range at both noise cancelation and overall sound quality. I have now tried them both in my office area and also on a very long flight to Europe. Overall, I have been pleased with the sound quality - but only when the "noise cancel" mode is ON. If it is not ON then the bass is very much lacking. I also had a chance to do a direct compare of these Sennheisers to the original Bose version while on my flight. The Bose win hands down. No contest. Even with the Bose's noise cancel feature OFF the Bose cut out more noise than the Sennheiser's do while ON. I also compared them to a friend's set of Aiwa noise cancel headphones - the Awia's were also better at noise canceling than these Sennheisers but not as comfortable to wear on my head.
On a positive note, I will say that I could sleep with the Sennheiser's on my head where it was a bit difficult to do this the Bose version on my...Read more