I’m being a bit specific but thought I’d ask anyways. I’m after some noise cancelling, volume limited, Bluetooth over ear headphones. I’ve done some googling I’ve found that Moki brand have some (navigator) but wondering if there are other brand out there that I can compare them to.
Thank you
Posted Oct 5, 2022, 11:07 AM UTC
Sony's have long overtaken Bose as the best Noise Cancelling headphones on the market.
Of course, their pricing also reflects this.
My pair of Bose QuietComfort35s are getting a bit long in the tooth now but are still a fantastic pair of headphones, I suspect the current equivalent model would be just as good.
Also excellent if you need to wear heading aids as it'll cover the full ear and a bit (*not Tony Abbott sized ears)
Nuraphone, by Melbourne company Nura. RRP$500, I’ve had mine 4.5 years, I use them every single day and still going strong. Incredible headphones and one of my most-used possessions.
Can’t really beat a pair of Bose quietcomfort.
I currently have the bose quiet comfort 35 and sony xm5. I bought them when first released as my bose were in rough shape. My husband has sony xm3.
My favourite pair by far is the bose. They pair very easily with my laptop and phone, and switching between inputs is usually seamless. The button to pause and adjust volume is easy, and I like being able to manually turn off noise cancelling when I choose to. The cups fold down for compact storage when not in use. I love these.
The sony xm5 have incredible sound, better than the bose. They also automatically pause and resume when you take the headphones off and back on.
That's the only plus in my opinion. The control and device connectivity sucks, and is a bigger downside to their use than the quality is sound can ever make up for. They are really frustrating, and I am still using my slightly inferior but infinitely more reliable and user friendly bose whenever I can.
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Longer explanation of my issues with the xm5: They randomly switch inputs between my phone and my computer for no apparent reason, so if I want uninterrupted sound I have to turn Bluetooth off on the other device and it's very tedious switching between them by turning the Bluetooth back on and manually reconnecting each time.
Sony has an app which allows to connect to two devices at once which I thought would be awesome, and the app does give you various options to lock audio input to a device. However, that lock is reset every time the headphones go into sleep mode, which is after only a few minutes of idle time (shorter than my screen lock on my phone for comparison), and you have to go back into the app to lock the device every. single. time.
The touch to operate buttons are really janky: for example the double tap to pause works but double tap to unpause has never worked on YouTube videos even though it does on Spotify, Netflix and audible. As I tend to listen to podcasts on YouTube that's an annoying problem. My husband has a similar problem with his xm3s, any time I want to talk to him I have to wait while he tries the double-tap-to-pause 3 or 4 f times before I can talk to him.
Another issue I have with the touch commands is that they are often accidentally touched, for example when I reach up for a coffee cup my shoulder inevitably bumps it. I'm a small person and the headphones stick out, I can't avoid it, and when my shoulder pauses my podcast and I can't restart it without having to walk to the other end of the house that is annoying. Any time my kids give me a hug, or I reach down to grab something, and the dog comes in for attention the headphones will do something like skip ahead in the book or suddenly blast volume increase.
The cup padding bits are really flat and not as comfortable as the xm3 or bose, and when I last checked I couldn't buy after market cups to replace them yet. That might have changed now its been a month or two later. The headphones don't fold up and take more room to store when not in use.
Bose 700 series. The 35 ver2 were good, but these are....just...amazing.
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The Bose models are awesome if you can afford them. Otherwise try a Sennheiser 450BT, which is very good and more affordable.
We both have a set of the sennheiser 458bt from JBs Was about $150 on sale and they do a good job for the price.
I think the nearly identical 450bt is on sale somewhere check Ozbargain.
Next best would be the Bose QC35 or whatever Sony 1000m4 I think it is. But either Of those where about $400 a pair when we looked.
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Thank you all. I will check them out.
Sony wh-1000xm5. I can't hear anybody talking in the room.
I have them too, they are amazing
I flew to the UK w these headphones and slept like never before just from how much they drowned out plane noise, unreal
These are the best noise cancelling headphones I’ve ever had. Unfortunately the band shape doesn’t seem to suit my head very well and after about 2-3 hours on a flight it starts to get really sore, so I’m probably going to get the Apple AirPods Max headphones as they have a very soft strap for my apparently tender noggin.
I kinda move them around a bit.
Yeah that helps a bit. Best thing I found was to have the strap really loose so there’s less pressure on the head, but then the NC isn’t as good.
My XM3s are 5+ years old and still great.