I just got these on sale at Costco for $170 on the last day of the discount. They were listed as normally being $330 and I needed new headphones so I said fuck it. I'm pretty satisfied with my purchase after listening to some music and thought the sound quality was pretty good although I'm not a huge audio expert.
I’ve got a pair of B&W Px series that I use for air travel that I like. I gave my wife my Bose ones after I got them. Good sound quality, good noise cancelling, comfortable, come with a nice case for travel. Can find them on sale or used in your range if that is an option.
I haven’t listened to all of the ones you’ve listed, so not sure I can say with 100% accuracy, but I do like them and chose them over the Bose due to sound quality. (The Bose probably has a smidge better noise cancelling.) I think the Px8 is more about “luxury” build quality, so if that isn’t important the Px7 is a fair bit cheaper and will still be very high quality.
Hello,
I travel a lot for work, long haul flights of 12 to 14 hours.
Tried AirPods Pro, Bose Ultra QC ear buds, but after a while I cant take the pain or they fall out (yes ive tried the different bits to fit my ear).
Also use a pair of Bose QC SC headphones and to be honest I dont like them. The noise cancelling is good, but they push against my ears and after a few hours I have sweaty lugs.
Hoping someone can recommend a pair of good headphones good for long haul flights that wont cause me sweaty crushed lugs.
Sky is the limit in price, I use iPhone and Windows Surface when travelling.
I was looking at the AirPods Max, but looking for some recommendations before I try those.,
I have owned both. I currently have the Sony headphones. They sound good but are not as comfortable as the Bose. The Bose also sound amazing. I'm about to pass these Sonys on to one of my kids and go back to Bose.
They're generally fine, consumer-focused tunes. They're not awful, and MOSTLY you can make them sound better with included EQ. The Ultra and Ultra 2 are genuinely good headphones, once you make a couple of adjustments in the app. Their ANC is pretty middle of the road; similar to what you get with the Sennheiser Momentum 4/Apple/Px series from B&W, slightly behind the Sonys (though the Sonys sound genuinely terrible to me).
At any given price point, a good pair of open backs will always sound better (at least to my ears) than an ANC headphone. You're generally not buying an ANC headphone for sound quality; you're buying them for sound isolation first and sound quality second, but it's all about your own personal balance. I personally wouldn't buy the basic Bose; if you can't afford the QC Ultra line, you're better off getting the Sennheiser Momentum 4. It's a better balance, with perfectly competent ANC *and* good sound quality with a little tweak in the Sennheiser app. Most of the others require a third-party EQ tool to get good sound quality.
The QC are a step down from the M4 in terms of sound quality, but pretty equivalent in ANC. They're currently $169 at Costco if you don't mind the White Smoke color, though.
A lot of modern active headphones have a pretty good DAC mode where they connect to a PC via a USB-C cable to get lossless/low latency connections while letting all the parts of the headphone operate the way they're designed, so if the goal is just to listen plugged into a PC you can definitely do that that way.
I really like the Fractal Scape at $200, but it has a (removable, flip up-able) boom mic. The challenge you're running into is that that's an usual collection of requirements in the modern market outside of the cheap stuff; most headphones that give a damn about mic quality use a boom, so you're stuck with the low-end market. Maybe one of the Bose QCs? The sound isn't amazing but would be a step up from where you're at, a little behind the M4.
Top Headphones (Over / On Ear) on Reddit
1
Sennheiser
HD 560S
79% positive of 630 users
Budget gaming king with clear sound, but tight fit.
bingthebongerryday
