Sony Headphones Review
My new headphones arrived just before my flight back to Indiana for Christmas. I tried them out around the house, but you couldn't tell much of a difference. I was a bit skeptical. I flipped them on as soon as I got on the plane and I was absolutely shocked. It's almost scary how quiet they are.
The headphones work by recording the outside noise with a little microphone. They then generate a waveform that will cancel out that noise and add that into the music. The effect is that the outside noise is canceled out and you're left with just the music.
It's not perfectly silent. You can still feel/hear the low rumbles from the engine, but I was able to listen to the headphones at the same volume level I use in my office.
The headphones are only able to block out constant droning noises (like jet engines) so you still hear someone talking next to you just fine. But unless you got unlucky and sat next to Chatty Kathy then most of the noise on planes is from the engines anyway. When I tried to use them in the terminal while waiting for a flight, I was less impressed. The sound isn't as constant so you can feel sort of a compression wave inside the headphones as the waveforms are constantly being adjusted. It's difficult to describe, but it got uncomfortable after about five minutes. I ended up flipping off the noise canceling feature and just listening to music.
I got these headphones for free from my Sony card, but if you spend time on planes or trains, this is an easy purchase at $117.
P.S. Why doesn't "canceling" have two L's in it? I think that word was invented by the same grammar pirates who decided that "developing" only gets one P.
[UPDATE] Fixed my typo in the postscript. Yes, I see the irony.