Quote:
Originally Posted by ejaghana
I'd like to get my hands on some noise cancellers at some point. I've tried the Brookstone version of Bose QC2s, but I'm wondering if there's something out there that's cheaper and works just as well. I am willing to drop a small fortune on some Bose ones if they really are the best. I'm always on a freakin' airplane so it would be worth it. I'd just rather be cheap first.
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I have a set of the 2nd model of Bose headphones. I can't tell you whether Bose is best, because I haven't tried any of the competing products. But I can tell you what I think of my Bose ones.
I really like them. I always use them when I fly. I'm not a big fan of wearing headphones because they start to "pinch" my head after a while, but the Bose ones are probably the most comfortable ones I've ever worn. In other words, I'm ok with wearing them for the 5-hour flight from San Francisco to Chicago, whereas in the past when I used ordinary headphones with portable cassette players or airplane movie showings, the pressure hurt my head/ears after about an hour.
The Bose headphones do not surround you with complete silence. Anyone who expects that has unrealistic expectations. I don't think such a product exists.
There are two primary things the Bose headphones do for me:
1. Reduce the intensity of the roar of airplane engines, making it easier to hear announcements by the pilots, or the flight attendant offering me a drink, or the audio on my computer. I still hear the roar, but it's not as bad.
2. Give me beautiful, crystal-clear sound quality from my iPod or my computer. Wow, it's amazing.
The Bose headphones are not engineered to cancel all noise, just the frequency level of the jet engines. So they won't cancel high-pitched annoyances (such as a drill in a dentist's office). I have used them to listen to a music while a dentist was working on me, and it really helped make the time pass - the high quality of the music playback through the headphones distracts my attention from the drill and gives my brain something other than the dental experience to think about. So the headphones do help even at the dentist, just not in the sense of noise canceling.
Bose customer service favorably impressed me, too. On my first trip traveling with the headphones, I lost the cord that connects the headphones to the audio source (iPod, computer, etc). I went to the store where I bought them asking if I could purchase a replacement cord, and they gave me one for free!
Battery life is good. It's good enough that I can't really tell you how often I have to change the battery because it's seldom enough that I don't remember when I last did it.
I have found that the Bose headphones were really worth the money to me, personally. But I can understand your hesitation to spend that much money - it really made me squirm. But now that I have them, I feel like they're really worth the money.
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