Help. Looking for some ear cans.

[RP9er]

I'm looking for a good pair of noise canceling ear can type headphones.
I'd like to spend aroud $75, but i'll go over my budget if I have too.
Thanks in advance to anyone who can help me out.

[ghbishop]

Maybe I can help. I use two models of noise cancelling headphones.

On airplanes I use the Sennheiser PCX-250. The design of the cups cuts out a lot of high frequency even without the noise cancellation turned on. The noise cancellation will deaden the mid and low freqencies. You will quickly learn how to read the lips of flight attendents.

With noise cancelling headphoes you have to have a power source (usually one or two AA batteries). The decision is do you want the weight of the batteries on your head or in your pocket / belt etc.? On an airplane I'm not moving around a lot so I like the PCX-250 which have the batteries in a cylinder connected to the head phone cord. ($150 at circuit city).

For lawn mowing I use a cheaper pair of Sony MDR-NC5's. They do a good job canceling out the drone of the engine. But they are "on the ear" and don't do as good a job on the high frequency. The batteries are in the headset on these which is good in that there are no extra wires to get snagged while mowing.

For everyday listening I like the Sennheiser PX 100W. They fold up like the 250's but they have a shorter cord like you want to have with an ipod. (1.4 meters) I found most high end headphones have a 10' foot cord. It is amazing how much sound is missed using the standard earbuds.

In general the noise cancellation has trade offs in sound quality, weight of the batteries and cost. Unless you are in an environment that requires it I would not recommend them for everyday use. On a plane they are heaven.

[c.you]

I recommend the px100's as well, but they're not noice cancelling. I recommend some IEM's. Check out some canal phones from etymotic, ultimate ears (super pro series, they recently came out with their new model, superfi.3's which are at $99usd) and shure. I myself have the shure e2c's and they have great isolation and a solid overall sound.

[iSoldier17]

Hey thanks for the heads up about the super.fi 3's. Do you happen to know if anyone has gotten their hands on a pair to review or use?