Audiophiles and Travelers, Noise Cancelling, Bose QC35 Vs Sony MDR 1000x

Have a pretty long flight coming up, and decided to for once, not cheap out, and get the best noise cancelling headphones I could, within reason.

Ordered the Bose QC35, and have been using them for the past few days. The headset has a nice premium feel to it, is very light, almost disappearing from perception after a little while.

The noise cancelling is excellent as well. Definitely a step above the other cheaper headsets I've tried in the past.

The sound, while excellent, seems to be to lack with the lower frequencies.

It can pair to two devices at the same time, which is a very convenient feature... talk on the phone, after call, start playing music from pc, and it works. (Although idk why, windows has issues with pairing.)

What I dislike is the inability to toggle the ANC feature, and the inability to use the headset without any other devices connected, as it will give a continual audio prompt every little bit that it's trying to connect to one device or another, or that there is no device connected. Not a huge issue, but it does bug me somewhat.

Ordered the SONY MDR 1000x just now... going to compare the two and send one back. Anyone try them or other noise cancelling headphones?

The Bose SoundTrue around ear headphones have always had excellent sound and canceling abilities.
Here.

I use a pair of Skullcandy Crushers, they are amazing. Nice big soft leather earpieces, noise canceling, and you pop a AA batt into one of the earpieces and with a slider switch can turn up the bass, and it sounds incredible. Not like shitty sounding bass boost from old days. It sounds like I have a pair of subs strapped to my head. The slider lets you choose how much bass you want, if any. Love these headphones. They retail for around $70-100. i got mine off ebay for 25$ from someone who received as a gift and only used once. They are near mint and work great. Also the headphone cord has a mic on it for talking on the phone, and you can detach the cord from the headphones.

These are the ones I have:
http://www.skullcandy.com/headphone...iversal&color=Eric Koston#R60d7uPxMle4xE1S.97

There is a wireless option out now too, but $199

For me my pair of Sennheiser HD650s with twisted pear audio cables and my Ruby CARAT II DAC / Head amp will more than suffice when listening to high bit rate audio files (FLAC or ALAC or just high bit rate .WAV) on my hackintosh via Toslink.
I really like Sennheiser studio headphones.
Denon, Audeze, beyerdynamic and the HiFiMAN over ear style phones are all very great too. ....

I especially like the planar magnetic style drivers as they seem to be extremely accurate with reproducing small details, clearing up the overall sound. My wallet doesn't like the price though.

Part of my requirement, was that the headphones must be wireless, and relatively compact/comfortable for travel. I also have the Noisehush Naztech i9 headset, and for the price it's very good. As of late I noticed that there is a persistent kind of buzz in certain kids of environments, where the noise is not low and steady though. That is why I decided to look for better alternatives. I think it might be more of a long term manufacturing defect though since it's been with me for a year of pretty heavy use. In terms of comfort, they are actually on par with the Bose qc35. The earcups don't seal quite as well, but it has the softest overhead band, that distributes weight extremely evenly, even over my apparently somewhat misshapen skull. The Bose QC35's get a very slight nod from me in that department, despite having a worse headband, but they do have better sealing cups, and the head very light, even pressure from the cups basically holds up the headset with zero pressure on top of the head.

At work, on my PC I have the logitech G35 headset. Just replaced it the other day actually because my old one, after 4 years of daily abuse, finally broke. At home I use the Corsair Vengeance 2000. Really really nice headset, but the felt earcups collect dust like crazy, and they do also get warm with time.

What's the long flight?

-Alex

JFK to Vancouver, to Manila, to Bangkok. Then 1 night and one day to recover, and another 3-4 hours to Phukett.

So far the most taxing travel I have ever done was a back to back flight from Chiang Mai, to Phukett, to Bangkok, to Hong Kong, to JFK. That was around 50 hours of travel time back to back, with a little over 40 of them up in the air. Was the cheapest way to do it at the time, although the Chiang Mai to Phuckett part was totally useless, but it was cheaper to transfer vs going to bagkok directly, and added ~4 hours of flight time. That was grueling.

Unfortunately there is just no good way to travel halfway around the world, that is also cheap, and and fast. I will be flying out thursday night, and landing saturday evening, local time.

The longest continuous flights now days are about 17 and half hours. The flight from JFK to Hong Kong is anywhere from 14 to 16 hours. Longest time I have personally spent on a plane, from the time I got on to the time off, to date, was 17.5 hours, with the plane sitting, waiting to take off for a good 2 hours. That was pretty nerve wracking too, because I had a connection to make, and landed half an hour AFTER my connecting flight was set to depart. Very impressed with how Cathay pacific acted, because they had two representatives from the airline meet me and 3 other people at the gate, deplaning, escorted us through internal not public halls, walked us through security super fast, and got us to the plane in time. That flight was also delayed a bit fortunately. As I found out later, the checked bags actually didn't make it... I was traveling with carry on only. The security at Hong Kong airport was also extremely efficient, and generally nice. That was the only time ever I also had my luggage checked at the gate itself which was off. I feel bad for the agent because after 3 weeks of travel he basically bad to dig through my dirty laundry

Yikes! Longest flight I personally remember doing was Paris to Miami, about 13 hours! I was exhausted at the end

-Alex

In my experience, with needing to get to airport early, checking in, going through security, any flight over 8 hours is pretty taxing. I applied to the Global Entry program, which includes TSA Precheck, but highly doubt I will be able to finish the process for it within a week. Flights themselves, up to 8 hours, to me, are completely tolerable. Anything over that becomes tiring. I literally get tired of sitting after that long.

I'm actually kind of surprised that with the plethora of neck pillows, and other travel related comfort products, there is no seat cushion, or buttocks massager designed specifically for long flights. Maybe it has to do with the ever shrinking size of economy seats.

Those are some gruesome long flights indeed, probably calling for sleeping pills rather than noise cancelling headphones

Flying the long way around could actually be interesting and perhaps cost effective as well, since i travel from europe to asia quite often i meet americans that opt for this route. Something typical would be NY-london(/amsterdam,frankfurt etc)-dubai(/abu dhabi, doha/etc)-bangkok which are all 8 hours or less per leg.

From the people i met going that way around they noted that from the eastern US it was either cheaper to take this way around, or they wanted to avoid the extremely long flights and stay overnight in between (which as a US citized you can without needing to obtain a visa in advance, both in europe and places like dubai).

As for headphones on flights: I doubt the over-the-ear type are really that comfortable on a plane. Sound quality may be superior and noise cancelling good, but there still is the issue of how to sleep without them coming off in (economy) airplane seats.

Another thing to consider: if you get to pick a seat, try one over or just in front of the wings. There is quite some difference in noise level around an airplane, and it usually gets less noisy in front of the engines. One older jets the engine noise could be quite deafening behind the engines, though that's not likely to be the case on more modern jets.

If possible pick something just in front of the wings regardless, as those seats are also closer to the center of gravity of the plane and you'll feel less when in shakes around in turbulence and such.

Unfortunately I had to book fairly late into the season, so my choices were severely limited, and the flight I booked was the best option in terms of price, duration, departure and arrival times. I did splurge a bit to upgrade to an exit row/economy plus kind of seat though.

Interestingly the airline rep specifically told me that if I am unable to use the exit row seat, they will find one that is equal or better. So now I admit I'm kind of hoping there will be some empties in business class up front, and I might just need to be moved there due to balance issues.

Given that I have limited time, I don't like turning what can be done in two days, into a 3-4 day affair. Doing one 8 hour leg at a time would be a heck of a lot easier though, especially with an overnight stay. Also tends to bump up the trip budget somewhat, and I've always subscribed to more of a splurge at location, vs getting there philosophy. Maybe in the future I'll be able to afford to take business and first class seats, but I don't see that happening anytime soon.

Last time I was there, met surprisingly few americans actually. The long flight definitely puts people off from visiting south asia. Tons and tons of people from china, australia, and then europe.

I do know to book seats up front or toward middle, but leg room takes priority overall.

Never really had an issue with headphones staying on while sleeping on the plane. I had some ars technica earbuds 3 years go, and those tended to slip out after a while, but in terms of can type headsets... I've fallen asleep in front of my computer quite a few times with the bigger, heavier, clunkier corsair headset.

Definitely have a point about sleeping pills... I'm seeing my doctor tomorrow, pretty much for that purpose alone

I remember in the past when traveling with my mom for her business we would get free flights on LAN to Lima, Peru. Once, we got a free bump up to Business class which was pretty sweet! Lie-back seats, good food etc... I actually don't really mind the food they give to you in economy class, I never had a problem and usually take seconds if they offer, I just get hungry!

-Alex

I have a couple pair of noise cancelling headphones but rarely use them but they do have a switch to turn the noise cancelling off.
Speaking of which my favorite headphones after all these years that go over the ear are still my 30 year old Sony mdr-v6. Still work perfect after all those years. Have a bunch of different in ear ones but I always seem to grab the V6 regardless of how large they are. The only thing I have done with them is replace the stock pads with some aftermarket really nice ones. They Seal over my ears so well I would choose them over either of my noise cancelling ones.
I do own 2 pair of the V600 which were designed for a bit more bass but the sound out of the V6 is better in my opinion. The V6 are still made today 31 years after they were introduced in 1985. I would bet that they are easily the most known and used headphones in the world.

Of course those don't have much to do with what you are looking at but I couldn't help remenising about them.

I am flying from Detroit to Orlando on Dec 29th, with my GF. We are going to Disney World for New Years. I'll be taking my skullcandy crushers for sure. Its only a 2-3 hour flight though. I believe we are flying on a 747. I've never been on a plane that big. The longest flight Ive been on was from Detroit to Arizona. I forget the airport out there. It was like a 4 hour flight iirc. It was 20 years ago

At home on my PC I have a Turtlebeach over the ear headset with mic, its a very nice pair of headphones as well. I think X60 model? I forget. They were something like 59.99

Interesting thread. *listens closely*

I have a long flight coming up and thought about these too. Going to Anchorage (from JFK) & back with connection through Denver, two 5 hr flights each way.

I have an "economy plus" (united) subscription though. I can fly as often as I like (within1 yr) and I get any available E+ seat for the price of economy.

Good deal if you fly a lot.

When I require portable earphones I choose the 5 stage inner ear monitors from EarWerkz. These are hands down probably the most illusive pair of headphones anyone will get.
I got these at a HIFI show in Seoul back in fall 2012 for quite a reduced price. i owned a number of different brands including BOSE and B&O.
The most disappointment I've had were the last 2 brands. B&O was nice looking but performance wise were terrible (I sold mine off). Bose was overpriced and had probably the worst construction I've ever seen in a headphone, period... full stop... .

Sound stage is isolating and accurate.
These have 5 separate balanced armature drivers seated in each ear piece. 2 for high freq, 1 larger base, 2 lower-mid freq. A decent portable head amp is required to drive these properly. I personally use a CMOY amp or a FIIO attached to a hacked ipod classic (isolated line output with pod-linux for iPod5.5G )..

That's what I use.

If I want to listen to something, I usually go with something I'll have for quite some time.
Time is too short to listen to crappy headphones.
:beer: