johnaec
02-06-2008, 07:21 PM
After my last flight, I finally gave up on airline supplied headphones. They don't go down far enough to reach your ears properly, and with the little foam earpads, the audio is virtually undiscernable over the background noise, unless you hold them hard against your ears.
So I broke down and sprung for a new pair of JBL Reference 510 Noise Cancelling on-ear headphones on eBay for a BIN price of $19.95, (list - $149.95!). http://www.jbl.com/home/products/product_detail.aspx?prod=JBLREF510BLK-H&Language=ENG&Country=US&Region=USA&cat=MME&ser=HMM&featureid=12363
These work similar to the Bose headphones, in that they have little mics built into each earphone, (facing the world), which then send these signals to a tiny amp module that inverts the phase of these signals and feeds it back into the main audio signal, cancelling out a substantial amount of the ambient background noise by doing so.
In short, they're seem to work pretty well, (though possibly not as well as Bo's Bose... :p ). There's a little switch on the power module that lets you turn noise cancelling on/off, and it really does make a big difference in the background noise that you hear. The "good" audio doesn't seem to be affected at all, and the sound of these is better than I was expecting - actually quite good!
They fold up pretty small into a little carrying bag, and the headphones slide down far enough on their mounts for even the biggest heads. ;)
In short, for the $20 I paid, a real steal! (I'd still like to compare them to the Bose on-ear model sometime...)
Don't fly without them!
John
So I broke down and sprung for a new pair of JBL Reference 510 Noise Cancelling on-ear headphones on eBay for a BIN price of $19.95, (list - $149.95!). http://www.jbl.com/home/products/product_detail.aspx?prod=JBLREF510BLK-H&Language=ENG&Country=US&Region=USA&cat=MME&ser=HMM&featureid=12363
These work similar to the Bose headphones, in that they have little mics built into each earphone, (facing the world), which then send these signals to a tiny amp module that inverts the phase of these signals and feeds it back into the main audio signal, cancelling out a substantial amount of the ambient background noise by doing so.
In short, they're seem to work pretty well, (though possibly not as well as Bo's Bose... :p ). There's a little switch on the power module that lets you turn noise cancelling on/off, and it really does make a big difference in the background noise that you hear. The "good" audio doesn't seem to be affected at all, and the sound of these is better than I was expecting - actually quite good!
They fold up pretty small into a little carrying bag, and the headphones slide down far enough on their mounts for even the biggest heads. ;)
In short, for the $20 I paid, a real steal! (I'd still like to compare them to the Bose on-ear model sometime...)
Don't fly without them!
John