Noise Cancelling Headphones

Soldato
Joined
17 Mar 2005
Posts
4,042
Location
Home
Hey all,

Been researching into getting my mum a pair of good noise cancelling headphones. She has a limit of £100 and I've had a look at a few reviews but they only seem to have pairs at just under £100 or £200-300. Does anyone have any personal experience with headphones sub £100 that offer the best noise cancelling?

Cheers
 
Soldato
Joined
18 Oct 2009
Posts
11,175
Sadly, good noise cancelling headphones aren't cheap. There are a couple around the £100 mark from Sony, and although Sony also make the 1000X, which have excellent noise cancellation, these cheaper models don't compare really.

Philips SHB8850 have appeared on a best lower budget noise cancelling headphones list, but trusted reviews gave them 2.5/5 and said the noise cancelling is lacklustre. I've seen similar comments about the £100 Sony's. Some say the noise cancelling works well, other people say it's poor.

£100 on wired headphones, is not all that much for a good pair really; not when the are many higher end headphones costing several hundreds to a thousand and more. Sony MDR-1A are a good example. Once you add wireless and noise cancelling technologies, you either end up with them costing three times as much, like the MDR-1000X in the case of good noise cancelling headphones, or the quality suffers all round for headphones costing £100, because everything used has to be that much cheaper to meet the budget.

Just adding Bluetooth to a good pair of headphones will double it's cost, let alone adding noise cancellation as well, which is harder to do well on a lesser budget.

What kind of environment will the headphones be used in?

Are both wireless and noise cancelling necessities?

You'd stand a better chance of getting decent wireless headphones for £100 without noise cancelling. Closed back headphones might do a good enough job of noise isolating, without the need for noise cancellation. Does depend on where the headphones will be used though.
 
Soldato
OP
Joined
17 Mar 2005
Posts
4,042
Location
Home
Sadly, good noise cancelling headphones aren't cheap. There are a couple around the £100 mark from Sony, and although Sony also make the 1000X, which have excellent noise cancellation, these cheaper models don't compare really.

Philips SHB8850 have appeared on a best lower budget noise cancelling headphones list, but trusted reviews gave them 2.5/5 and said the noise cancelling is lacklustre. I've seen similar comments about the £100 Sony's. Some say the noise cancelling works well, other people say it's poor.

£100 on wired headphones, is not all that much for a good pair really; not when the are many higher end headphones costing several hundreds to a thousand and more. Sony MDR-1A are a good example. Once you add wireless and noise cancelling technologies, you either end up with them costing three times as much, like the MDR-1000X in the case of good noise cancelling headphones, or the quality suffers all round for headphones costing £100, because everything used has to be that much cheaper to meet the budget.

Just adding Bluetooth to a good pair of headphones will double it's cost, let alone adding noise cancellation as well, which is harder to do well on a lesser budget.

What kind of environment will the headphones be used in?

Are both wireless and noise cancelling necessities?

You'd stand a better chance of getting decent wireless headphones for £100 without noise cancelling. Closed back headphones might do a good enough job of noise isolating, without the need for noise cancellation. Does depend on where the headphones will be used though.

Hey thanks for the help, I didn't mention Wireless so not sure where you picked that up from. Wired is fine, it's essentially to help drown out the sound of the TV (my parents are old) so she can watch stuff on the tablet, i've given her a pair of Creative Live Aurvana's in the interim which work okay, but not really designed to cancel noise. Sub £100 wired is fine for us.
 
Soldato
Joined
18 Oct 2009
Posts
11,175
Hey thanks for the help, I didn't mention Wireless so not sure where you picked that up from. Wired is fine, it's essentially to help drown out the sound of the TV (my parents are old) so she can watch stuff on the tablet, i've given her a pair of Creative Live Aurvana's in the interim which work okay, but not really designed to cancel noise. Sub £100 wired is fine for us.

True, you didn't mention wireless, but it seems there are very few noise cancelling headphones that aren't wireless these days.

Lindy NC40 is as much I can come up with for wired noise cancelling headphones. They are very cheap, but the choice appears to be very slim pickings.

I think closed isolating headphones will be a better choice, such as Audio Technica M30X or M40X. They are aimed at professional music monitoring, so need to block outside noise out to a good degree. For excessively noisy environments, good active noise cancelling will likely be better, but as mentioned in my previous post, they are not cheap. I'd take good isolating headphones over cheap active noise cancelling headphones, that don't actually cancel out noise that well, any day of the week.
 
Last edited:
Soldato
Joined
25 Jul 2012
Posts
7,376
Location
Ankh Morpork
A much cheaper solution would be to use IEMs (in ear monitors), which wouldn't really need active noise cancellation due to their strong passive noise isolation.

Current favourites are the KZ ZS5 (£30), Brainwavz B100 (£50) and 1MORE Triple driver (£83)
 
Soldato
Joined
25 Jul 2012
Posts
7,376
Location
Ankh Morpork
A much cheaper solution would be to use IEMs (in ear monitors), which wouldn't really need active noise cancellation due to their strong passive noise isolation.

Current favourites are the KZ ZS5 (£30), Brainwavz B100 (£50) and 1MORE Triple driver (£83)

If you do want headphones then over ear would be a lot more comfortable than on ear (the AKGs) and you can currently get the Sony MDR-100ABN as an open box return for £172, which has quality noise cancellation and also adds BlueTooth wireless. I don't own these myself but do own the Sony MDR-100AAP, which they are based on and can vouch for their comfort, build quality and sound. I bought mine as an open box return and they were in mint condition.
 
Associate
Joined
26 Nov 2016
Posts
283
You could chip in the extra cash to push her up another level in quality I guess, although from my experience of my own parents, that step up in quality is often completely lost on them :p
 
Soldato
Joined
25 Jul 2012
Posts
7,376
Location
Ankh Morpork
Yeah, I've read that but it has to be said that the critics are very much in the minority, most people are very happy with the sound and for the price you can't really go wrong anyway.
 
Associate
Joined
26 Nov 2012
Posts
938
Yeah, I've read that but it has to be said that the critics are very much in the minority, most people are very happy with the sound and for the price you can't really go wrong anyway.
That's fair enough, I'd be interested to know your thoughts on them if you do decide to get a pair. I see there are a couple of sellers on the Rainforest who've got them 'Fulfilled by Rainforest' which I think means they're being stocked in a UK warehouse so no need to wait for international shipping. Couldn't find any UK sellers on the Bay.
 
Associate
Joined
20 Mar 2013
Posts
813
Location
London
Also, surprised to see that Bose seem to dominate this segment as I have always regarded Bose as over priced, poor quality speakers driven by marketing spend
 
Soldato
Joined
25 Jul 2012
Posts
7,376
Location
Ankh Morpork
Bose dominate in the same way that Beats dominate - they are trendy, not necessarily good.

The best noise cancelling headphones are the Sony MDR-1000X, they not only sound better but have more effective noise cancelling.
 
Soldato
Joined
18 Oct 2009
Posts
11,175
Yeah, good noise cancelling adds a fair bit to the cost.

Bose do well in this area because noise cancelling is a technology that processes sound, which is what Bose do. Rather than use better quality drivers to improve sound quality as most companies who make headphones and speakers do, Bose try to use technology try to improve the sound of lesser quality drivers by processing the hell out it. Their noise cancelling headphones work well, but their sound quality is nothing to write home about. I suppose even among people who appreciate good sound, Bose have been the go to NC headphones, because that aspect was the most important.

Now, with the Sony's, you can have the good NC, and good sound as well.
 
Back
Top Bottom