Best noise canceling headphones: Audio Technica ATH ANC7, Koss Pro 4aa headphones, and more

Good noise canceling headphones let you hear every note of your music with clarity, while eliminating distracting sounds such as airplane engines, air conditioning and heating units, office noises, screaming children, and TV chatter.  Even if you choose not to play music through them, they will let you enjoy peace and quiet in loud environments.  In this review, we’ll look at some of the best noise canceling headphones.

The Audio Technica ATH ANC7 headphones are very well-liked among people who own them.  Many reviewers compared them favorably to Bose Quietcomfort2 headphones which cost approximately twice as much. One reviewer who wore them on a plane said that with music turned off, it seemed as if he was in a room by himself.  With music, he could turn his iPod to 25% of total volume and hear every note.  “The sound of screaming kids is now a distant memory on those 9 hour flights,” another reviewer wrote.  He was also quite happy with the 60 hours of listening time on one AAA battery.

A 61-year-old with serious hearing loss plugged these into a pair of low-end computer speakers and was amazed.  “For the first time in years I can listen to music and enjoy full sound,” he wrote.  He was thrilled to be able to watch a movie, actually be able to hear it, and yet not bother those living with him.

An office cubicle dweller also found that these eliminated all her distractions by “two heavy sighers, a pounding typist, peripheral conference and personal calls,” and other office sounds.  She said they work with or without an audio source, are very portable, and the circuitry does not introduce static.  “Just perfect,” she concluded.

A bush hogger operating a Ford utility tractor found he was able to use the Audio-Technica headphones to listen to audio books while he worked.  He also found they worked well for music and talk radio on XM, and recommended them to anyone working in a loud environment.

The Koss Pro-4AA Studio Quality Headphones have a “retro” look to them, and there’s a very good reason for that – they’ve been used in professional recording studios for ages. There are good reasons recording engineers choose them – a reviewer complimented these phones for “amazing sound reproduction with the widest range of frequency response” with “deep bass and crisp highs.”  He said that every CD, record, and digital audio file he ran through the Koss headphones sounded much improved.

He also said they are “built like a tank,” which can be taken as a big advantage, although also a slight disadvantage (several reviewers commented on their heaviness).  However, because they are so well-built, Koss can afford to cover them with a no-questions-asked lifetime warranty. If they stop working for any reason, simply return them to the manufacturer, and Koss sends you a new pair.

The award for “best value for the money” in this class of headphones would likely go to the Sennheiser EH-150 Evolution Hi-Fi Stereo Headphones. Costing just a fraction of what the headphones listed above cost, the Sennheiser EH 150 Evolution headphones’ sound was described by one reviewer as “rich, full, textured, deep.”  She went on to say that she could detect tiny details and even flaws in the music.  She also complimented their lightness compared to many noise-canceling headphones, and the fact that they don’t clamp onto her head too tightly.  She noted that to get a pair of headphones that are of substantially higher quality, you’d have to spend a LOT more, perhaps on the Sennheiser EH-150 Evolution Hi-Fi Stereo Headphones, which as of this writing are more expensive than the EH 150 headphones by more than a factor of ten.

Some others you may want to consider:

• Able Planet Sound Clarity Active Noise Canceling Headphones
• Sony MDR-XD400 Stereo Headphones

… or, you can browse Amazon’s complete selection of noise canceling headphones to find what you want.  Whether your intention is to hear your music at the highest clarity, or just to get some peace and quiet, you should be able to find a pair of noise canceling headphones that do the job.