Ex29 Noise Reduction Headphones

October 4, 2011 Comments Off

For a while now, I’ve been looking for the sound of silence… No, not the song, but a proper set of headphones to block out the sounds of the world, enabling me to listen to music, watch films, or just not hear what goes on around me.

There are two primary environments where this has some importance to me. First, in the workplace where it is quite often hard to concentrate properly because of noise, especially in an open-plan office, and secondly during transport, especially long air travel.

Finally I’ve found solutions for both, though at a cost…

My solution for the Workplace

At work, it’s a bit of s different environment than when travelling. First of all, the noise that you want to block out is not the constant drone of an engine, but ALL sound around you, independent of frequency and regularity.

For these reasons, getting headphone that were actively noise cancelling was out. Active noise cancellers work best for low-frequency regular sounds, and are much less efficient when dealing with voices and the other general sounds of an office.

So, it was down to passive noise cancellers, which means a big insulated cup over your ears, and I found a very good solution in the Extreme Isolation EX-29‘s.

They have some disadvantages, but they REALLY block out that office noise. The disadvantage is that they’re warm to wear, gets uncomfortable after a while due to them being clapped very firmly over your ears (to avoid sound leaking in), and even though I haven’t had any problems, a colleague of mine had two pairs break. But… they live up to their title ‘Extreme Isolation’, and I’m quite happy with mine.

My solution for Transport Noise

As said before, transport noise can be quite efficiently handled by active noise cancelling headphones. This makes them lighter than the EX-29′s above, and also means that they don’t have to be as massive meaning they’re more comfortable.

Comfort was a BIG factor for me… I’ve had 3+ set of active noise cancellers, and none of them were comfortable to wear over a long flight, or they had sub-par noise cancellation, or both.

The solution, it turned out to be, throw some £££ at it! You get what you pay for, and certainly this is also the case in this area.

I just flew to Kuala Lumpur, an 11.5 hour flight, and was dreading listening to the sound of a Boeing 747-400 for that long. I decided it was time to do something about it, and went into the Dixons electronics store in the airport. They had a wide range of active noise cancelling headphones, but once I tried the Bose QuietComfort 15‘s, nothing else even came close. I did try some Sony ones first, and thought “Wow! These are really good!“, and then I tried on the Bose’s…

Even in the noisy environment of Heathrow’s terminal 4 they were good but then when I turned them on in the plane… They KILL noise! ALL noise! The loud drone of the aircraft became a distant low rumble, and even the voices around me were pretty much silenced.

On an earlier flight, I’d tried to watch a film on my Asus Transformer using a pair of normal headphones. It turned out to be impossible. The sound of the plane simply overwhelmed what sound the Transformer could produce, and you couldn’t hear what was going on. With the Bose’s on, I only had to turn up the volume to normal speaking level, and it completely drowned out the sound of the plane. I wore them for the entire 11.5 hour trip, and they didn’t become the least uncomfortable even after that long.

In addition to being awesomely good at noise cancelling, the Bose’s come in a very nice protective case, and also have airplane jacks plus an extension cord with iPhone remote controls (yuck!).

They have two downsides, none of which really mattered to me once I’d tried them on. First, they don’t work as normal headphones without a battery, which some of the others do (without the noise cancellation), and secondly, they’re expensive! The cost in the airport was £236, which is a lot, but they bought me a quiet trip to KL, are going to give me a quiet trip when I go back home, and after that whenever I go flying or takes a bus somewhere. When divided up, it really doesn’t add up to much extra per trip…

Conclusion

I’d most definitely recommend both of the above products. They serve different purposes, but both of them excel in their area. If you can abstract form the Bose’s price, they’re an extraordinary product in every way, and the EX-29′s really kill office noise, but can be warm and slightly uncomfortable to wear for long periods.