System Administrator Tool chest..

Tue Feb 14 16:03:33 PST 2006

On Tue, 7 Feb 2006, Bob Sutterfield wrote:

> My Panasonics have a muff style but they still sit on the ear.  There are
> some newer earbud-style noise-canceling sets.  And the fancy Bose (and
> others) completely enclose the ear.  What to choose?  Anything that
> completely encloses the ear will be more efficient and effective than a
> design that fits on or in the ear, because the muffling will passively
> eliminate a big part of the sound.  And it keeps your ears warmer too :-)

>From the data I've seen this isn't the case.  At the high-end,
the Bose Quiet Comfort (retail $299) only blocks between 17db 
and 30db, varying by frequency.  Low-end "active" noise 
cancelling headphones do much more poorly.  On the other hand, 
the low-end Shure E2c ($99) in-ear headphone blocks 20db-44db, 
also varying by frequency.

My review of specs for the active vs. in-ear headphones was 
similar among the low-hanging fruit as well, which is why I
went with in-ear blocking headphones vs. active noise re-
duction.

Of course, some folks don't like stuff being put in their
ears--I had to deal with a lot of that when I was making
them.  So, YMMV.

If I were going for higher-end in-ear headphones in a price-
range similar to the Bose, I'd be choosing Shure or Etymotic
Research.  Though, at those prices, you'd might as well bite
the bullet and cough up another bill or two and buy musician's
monitors.

=Nadine=