wireless noise cacelling

Mmaxed

Active Member
Wife wants some wireless noise cancelling over the ear headphones. Which are the best all around?

While sound quality is a factor, portability, battery life, and build quality are important. These will be used mainly for travel and want them to last.
 
The usual suspects are the Bose QC 35 (now QC 35 II), Sony MDR-1000X (now WH-1000 M2) and Sennheiser Momentum 2.0 wireless. Bose have the best noise cancelling, the others will sound a bit better. I would add the Sennheiser PXC 550 as they fold a bit flatter than the Momentums which is why I picked up a pair for travel. Look into those four pairs and pick the best balance of features and sound for her use.
 
Good hunting. I don't think you can go wrong with any of those but one of them may appeal more for whatever reasons which is why I don't want to make a definitve recommendation. Let us know if you have any other questions.
 
Larger airports often have the Bose products in kiosks and stores in the terminal that you can try on for comfort and audition for sound and effectiveness. Don't have to buy there, but it's good to be able to check them out this way. Get one with Bluetooth input for future headphone-jack-free phones from "brave" manufacturers.

Chip
 
ordered the Sony's based on reviews and the ability to turn off noise cancelling. They came in yesterday and I gave them to her a few days before her birthday in case she would want to return them. When she first put them on I heard a WOW from her office. When I asked wow what I got no reply, as she couldn't hear me. I think she likes them!

I listened to them today plugged into my laptop and compared them to my cheap MCMs. I am not a headphone guy, just use mine for exorcising. Quite different presentations, but both have something I like better. The Sonys are smother and a little cleaner. The sound is somehow more direct, foe lack of a better term. Bass is tighter and a little less prominent. The bass is a little too much on the MCMs but still fairly tight and clean. The MCMs are more or less open backed with no noise blocking. The have a more open sound that I like.

I guess the biggest surprise for me was just how good the Sonys were for all the bells and whistles, and how the cheapies held their own.
 
The usual suspects are the Bose QC 35 (now QC 35 II), Sony MDR-1000X (now WH-1000 M2) and Sennheiser Momentum 2.0 wireless. Bose have the best noise cancelling, the others will sound a bit better. I would add the Sennheiser PXC 550 as they fold a bit flatter than the Momentums which is why I picked up a pair for travel. Look into those four pairs and pick the best balance of features and sound for her use.

I own both the Bose QC 35 and the Sony MDR-1000X and found the Sony to be significantly better at noise cancelling than the Bose, particularly if with bass frequencies such as around industrial building sites. The high frequency limit of the NC was also much higher on the Sony. Interestingly the Bose QC20 wired noise cancelling earphones (which I also own) were almost as good as the sony with equal higher frequency NC and only losing out on the loudest of bass noises. Not meaning to shoot your comment down but I do see repeated everywhere "Bose has best cancelling but..." and it's no longer true IMO.
 
No worries, great to hear Bose has some serious competition on the NC front. How do you compare the sound quality of the Bose and Sony?
 
Thanks so much for the help in picking the cans. The wife had a rather long plane trip to Australia. Said she loves them.
 
Glad it worked out. Good pair of headphones does help make the time pass faster on those long flights!
 
No worries, great to hear Bose has some serious competition on the NC front. How do you compare the sound quality of the Bose and Sony?

Sorry for my slow reply. The Bose might be well suited for some, but the frequency response is too scooped out (V-shaped EQ) in the mids for me. Before settling on the Sony MDR-1000x I had all of these for audition for a few weeks at home:.

B&W wireless P7, Sennheiser Momentum 2, B&O H9, Sony MDR-1000x, Sennheiser PCX-550, Bose QC-35.

In that shoot-out the QC-35 was in the bottom half, but I could see how some might like the sound. To be fair, the QC-35 was the best for comfort. The P7 were really really good, and I really wanted to love the H9 with it's removable battery and booming bass (a little too booming). One important factor was that pushed the sony over the edge was that the Sony MDR-1000x were almost as good at the P7 for sound quality on wireless mode, but the Sony sound even better when wired and driven by a decent headphone amp (which is my case when I use them at my work desk).

I should probably start a thread??? I made pages of notes on the comparisons.
 
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