31
votes
Recommendations for noise cancelling, over ear headphones
I recently got promoted and my new position is about 70% travel.
Planes are loud.
Airports are loud.
Malls are loud.
I'm looking for really good noise cancelling, over ear headphones that have a hidden mic.
Ideally they would be good at playing audio on a plane and for taking zoom calls on my laptop. Bonus if switching between my android phone and MacBook is simple/without known issues.
Price is not a concern.
Sony wh-1000xm6
Has probably the best noise cancelling. I'm not sure what you mean, but it doesn't have like a gamer headset mic.
They have multi-device support. You can have up to two devices connected and it'll try to swap between them.
You can also try the WH-1000xm4. It's more foldable, but has a way worse mic than the xm6.
My siblings and I got these as a father's day gift for my dad.
We took turns putting them on and trying to make out what other people were saying, and it was impossible (and hilarious). The noise cancelling is VERY good.
I've owned at least 3 xm-series headphones and the noise cancelling is top notch yes. They're also nice and light to wear even with glasses.
BUT
The damn touchpad badonk badonk volume adjustment and next-prev on the right earcup is pure ass.
Also the "speak to pause" feature is completely useless. It'll pause my music for 10 seconds on every single slight throat clear or cough. You need the app - WHICH HAS FUCKING ACHIEVEMENTS - to disable it. And even then it randomly re-enables itself.
If you can spare the massive wad of cash, use only Apple devices and don't wear them in public, the Airpods Max are amazing.
I have the Xm4s and love them, but yes mic is meh. I very rarely use it so not a big deal for me. Great battery life, great noise cancelling, and decently portable due to the way it folds.
Ditto this. I like a lot about the XM4s but holy shit the mic is garbage. Interesting to know the XM6 mic is better.
I know OP isn't looking for these things, but thought I'd share anyway:
I've been using the XM3 since I bought them new many moons ago. They're comfortable and they fold up nicely into a carrying case. I like the touch activated controls on the right headphone. The sound quality is excellent and I love the option of noise canceling, ambient sound, or regular modes.
I know you don't ask, but my on ear headphones for working out are three WC CH 520. Inexpensive enough that I don't mind them bouncing around in a workout bag or getting sweaty. The only things I don't like is that they don't fold up nicely and they don't come with a carrying case, and also that the material on the ear cups gets wet with sweat and creates a painful suction effect on my ears, especially if I'm walking or running.
My wife has the XM3s and they're also comfortable for glass wearing folks. Not a point to be overlooked, especially for longer wears like a plane ride.
I have Xm5 and honestly love it. Sound quality is really good, noise cancelling is fine (I don't have experience with other noise cancelling headphones, so can't compare). I tried to use mic few times for calls and it's fine.
I have the XM5s, and I love them for air travel except the stupid head bar digs into my head sometimes and can be a bit painful after a few hours. It looks like the XM6s have a wider/comfier bar.
It also looks like the XM6s fold down smaller.
I have the xm3s, some of the best noise canceling I’ve ever tested. I imagine the newer ones have only advanced even better.
The padding in mine is breaking down and if I didn’t get a pair of free B&W Px7s I would have 100% opted to get the xm6s.
Sennheiser Momentum 4. They also have multipoint so you can connect to multiple devices at once. Battery life is great. Audio quality is great. Noise cancelling is great. They come with a hidden mic as well.
I've had them for a few years now and they are fabulous.
I've had my Momentum 3's for 5 years now and they are still doing great. I was worried about wear on the pads because they aren't replaceable (the one feature I was disappointed was missing) but so far so good. Battery life is still good. Really happy with my purchase, would definitely buy this series again.
I will also say Sennheiser Momentum is great in terms of sound quality and battery life. Good general use headphones, and work when I want to take calls as well.
The only thing I dont like is the touch controls on the sides.
Momentum 5 just came out this year, and the sound quality is pretty amazing. Noise cancelling has probably improved too, although I never tried 4.
I've been using a pair of Bose Quiet Comfort 35 V2 for years at this point, and I've found them to be a great pair of headphones. The nose cancelling is great for flying, and I'm usually shocked how loud the plane is whenever I have to take them off during a flight to talk to someone. I do use my pair a lot, so I've had to replace the ear cushions several times (which is a very easy and quick process once you get the hang of it), but part of the frequency is that I've bought cheaper "generic" headphone cushions that are compatible but not as durable as the official Bose ones. I see that they no longer have the number and sell the newer model just as the "Bose Quiet Comfort", but I think that when I'm in the market for a replacement I'll probably get another pair of Bose. I would assume the Ultra variant that the other Tilders have mentioned would be great.
I did want to note that I previously worked at Bose (store sales job after graduating before I was able to land an IT job), and the warranty policy is generous, at least it was ~8 years ago. They also retain decent trade in value should you wish to upgrade to a newer model down the line. Part of why I'm waiting to get a new pair of headphones is to actually swap them out when I'm in the US as the "Bose" stores in Malaysia are a locally run franchise/entity, and the US locations have a better trade in value. The local stores offered me 10% off my next purchase when I reached out to them, whereas my current headphones would still give ~$100 in the US to trade in which is ~1/3 the cost of a new pair.
I second the Bose Quiet Comfort. I got an earlier model of those in 2018, took them with me and used them basically every day, and they worked without a problem until I lost them a few months ago (after 8 years of constant use!). And by lost them I don't mean they broke, but I physically left them somewhere.
The only thing that I replaced a few times are the pads that go on your ears, but there are some affordable off-brand variants, so you have some choice with regards to looks and properties and don't need to stick with the expensive branded spare parts.
In fact it was such a good experience that I've since gotten the Bose QuietComfort SC headphones as a replacement. The SC simply stands for soft case. It's the same model but a bit cheaper and without the hard case, which I still have from the ones I lost.
Usually I would've done a bit more research before getting new ones, but the experience and durability of the headphones was just so nice that I really wanted to keep the same ones.
Note that back when I got the first pair in 2018 they were the 'flagship' model so to say, whereas now there's a more expensive 'ultimate' model of the quiet comfort line that looks a bit different, but I personally prefer the original design.
I also bought my pair around that time. I ended up getting mine replaced twice for free as I had some minor audio issues. Since I bought mine online I was able to ship them in and a couple of weeks later I received a new pair of them back.
I used to be very careful about keeping mine in the hard case whenever I went out. I usually just put them in my backpack now without the case if I'm just going to a local cafe, but any longer trips I'll bring out the case to keep them safe. I wanted to say a big thank you for mentioning the soft case as I'll definitely do that when I go to replace mine eventually. Since I don't earn a US salary the extra savings on buying the soft case over the normal hard case will be a good amount of savings for me.
I have a pair of Bose QuietComfort 2nd gen over the ear headphones and adore them. When I was in the market a couple years ago I was concerned with comfort while wearing glasses and the Mic quality for calls. The Bose QuietComforts at the time had a significantly better Mic than the Sony equivalent. I went to Best Buy so I could try wearing the headphones before I bought and found them to be the most comfortable headphones out of any of the ones there.
I can't speak to their noise canceling performance relative to other headphones since they're the only pair I've owned, but I can confirm that they work really well to cut out engine noise and baby crying while on airplanes and stay comfortable on long flights.
They also work pretty well when connected to 2 devices. Sometimes my computer or laptop will hog the connection and not release it for audio playing on my phone, but I'm not sure that it's a specific issue to these headphones.
I can recommend the Sony WH-1000XM4's though as @stu2b50 mentions, the microphone isn't as great and you might enjoy the newer Sony 1000XM6's more. I've had my XM4s for ~4-5 years now and they're still really good. I only use them during my travels, their noise cancelling is perfect for flights and travel in general. Comfort does leave a bit to be desired since I have big ears and a big head and the XM4s crushes my ears a lil. However, the XM6s do not have this problem.
Despite having my XM4s for many years now, battery life on them is still really good and has lasted me 12-14+ hour flights with continuous power on. ANC is active the moment you turn on the headphones too and I don't baby the battery on them. Switching between devices has not been a problem for me either, I switch between my iPhone and my Samsung tablet and have switched with my Macbook in the past with no trouble either.
I can confirm most of this, although over the years my big head (and also cushion replacements) have beaten the XM4s into submission and they don't hurt my ears anymore. The only point where my experience was worse than yours was with device switching; I found the best way to reliably get them to connect to my DAC was to have my phone forget them entirely.
Also a big fan of the xm4. Mine have held up well over the last 4-5 years. They really reduce the stress of flying. Twice, I've had one ear develop a very annoying high pitched whine. Take the ear pads off, take out the foam barrier, clean the microphone inside with isopropyl alcohol, let dry. There's also a calibration process you can trigger from the app that helps, and that you should do if you significantly change altitude.
I was just in the market for new multipurpose wireless headphones (kind of still am) and spent a couple of weeks researching many current headphones and talking to several people about it.
There are two very distinct types of wireless headphones you can get. One is your typical gaming headset. It will typically come with a visible microphone, possibly LEDs. It's better at having physical buttons and software for controlling them from a computer. These headsets have two main benefits: They're good at delivering "no" latency/low latency audio, and they have better microphones, not restricted by bluetooth profile and codec limitations, so your calls would sound better with your microphone on. However, they also tend to require their own USB dongle for connecting wirelessly (since we're bypassing bluetooth). You probably don't want one of these.
The second type are bluetooth headphones from various brands that tend to be phone-first. Typically they come with their own app that will configure them from your android phone. Microphones aren't visible (they're the same as the noise cancelling microphones, I think) and calls will sound "worse" and have higher latency but it's the same for everyone else. You want to be mindful of bluetooth codec support and battery life. This is probably the type you're looking for.
Within the wireless bluetooth headset category, the Sony WH-1000 line appears to be unambiguously the best at noise canceling and should be the best choice for you. They also deliver high quality audio and they are actually competitively priced. There are usually replacement cushions in the market (speaking from experience) for when yours wear off. In addition to the Android app there are third party Linux clients for some models and others are in the works. Also, Linux supports Sony's LDAC codec (one of the best bluetooth codecs). Note that Windows does not.
Other alternatives exist with different strengths and weaknesses. The Sennheiser Momentum 4 are a direct competitor that may have slightly better audio and worse NC. I dislike the capacitive touch controls that both the Sony and Sennheiser headphones have embraced as they seem janky and failure-prone, but that's something I have to live with.
The Bose Quiet Comfort Ultra gen2 is another current gen alternative that's a little more expensive and has more physical buttons (only a less exposed capacitive strip for volume). I actually tried these, having found them discounted, and quite liked the sound. The microphone was also quite decent for a bluetooth headset, and it has a functioning third party linux client and support for wired audio and multipoint! The only BT audio codec it has with cross platform support is aac however, since neither windows nor linux support its low latency codec aptX-adaptive (see my linux pain points comment!) There's a slight hiss in the NC and it's bad at blocking off light rustling against the headphones themselves (unlike Sony). Comfort is OK; they're lighter than my Sonys.
To be clear, all of these headphones sound great. As long as you can use a high quality codec and are not in a call, bluetooth headphones tend to actually test better than gaming headphones, so they should be great for listening to music or podcasts while on the move. You can look at online lab test results to see their frequency response curves. Keep in mind that as long as an equalizer is available some unevenness is tolerable since you can always fix it yourself.
Other brands in this category that had models I shortlisted as competitive during my research are Bowers & Wilkins (there was a discounted model with sweet physical buttons) and JBL (the Tour One M3 linked in the article above). I was warned against AudioTechnicas. A friend was very satisfied with his Beyerdynamics but when we looked into technical results, their wireless models did not perform well. There was also an option from Fairphone, the Fairbuds XL (not earbuds despite the name), which had the advantage of being highly repairable as you would expect, but also didn't test super great at actually being headphones.
That's a good write up! Good call on the capacitive controls too, I forgot I turned them off on my WH4s because they drove me nuts. I'd keep taking my head phones off or scratch my head and skip a song or change the volume and I gave up.
I have the Bowers and Wilkins Px8 S2 and they are the best audio I've ever heard, but if I write more here it's just going to sound like a Px8 ad. Despite that, I'd actually steer op away from them because the ANC is barely adequate for an office setting and I believe that quality extends down the B&W product stack from what I've read
Indeed, it wasn't as important to me as to Wafik though which is why they might have been a good choice for me. (That is the model I shortlisted.) I truly believe Sony is the obvious choice given what they seem to be looking for.
I picked up the Nothing Headphone (1)s around when they came out and have been quite happy with them. Can't speak to how good the noise cancelling is compared to others on the market, but I've taken them on planes a few times and they seem good to me (the over-ears they replaced were first-gen Surface Headphones which absolutely sucked, so they blow those out of the water at least).
You can enable multi-device connections in the Nothing X app which allows them to be connected to your laptop and phone simultaneously and it would switch to whichever one is playing audio automatically (and give incoming phone calls priority). No complaints from my wife on the audio quality during calls, and she complains about all my other headphones so I think they're fine in that department too.
They also sound nice to me, especially when you play around with some of the community EQ presets you can load by scanning QR codes in their app. That said, I'm not a big audiophile or anything--mainly I got them because I thought they looked cool (edit: oh, and also all-physical controls! It even has a dedicated physical button to enter pairing mode, so no danger of accidentally doing that by lingering on the power button too long like I kept doing on my old ones).
Just picked up a set of EarFun Wave Pro X on sale, since battery life will be consequential for a couple of long flights, as was price at $100. Cool feature is that ANC works in wired mode, which is handy for airplane audio. I'll report back when I've had a chance to try them out.
Edit: This is a very satisfying value headset that nearly matches spouse's Sony WH-1000xm5's with some tweaking. I started with the Pragmatic Audio level field settings and found them flat and distorted for my hearing. Tested with Pink Floyd's Money, Dead Can Dance Saltarello, Los Bitchos' Pista, Eddie 9V's 3 a.m. in Chicago, Eric Satie's Gnossienne No. 1, Dolly Parton's Jolene, Ann Peebles' I Can't Stand the Rain.
The Android app's Adaptive Audio profiling did it for me. I've got naturalistic, not over-produced sounding music with a decent soundstage that still hits the occasional ASMR moments when expected.
I ran the garbage disposal a couple of times while cooking and didn't hear it at all, so I think that's a good enough measure of whether the EarFuns will handle airplane noise. The isolation is almost too good, since I've got a little tinnitus and it's more noticeable with full ANC running.
The Android app is potentially data-grabby and I've got it set up with a throwaway account.
Second edit: This is problem that nearly no one else will have, but I'm in the midst of an arthritis flare and they're a hair tight on inflamed TMJs for extended wear. The range of adjustment on the headband doesn't have a short enough range on an average female sized head to take all of the weight off the ear region. At same time, I suspect the ear cups will be on the small side for men - I've got a fair amount of metal in one ear and it takes a little arranging for comfort.
I had two XM4s from Sony fail in three years (the first developed a feedback loop in the ANC causing it to emit ear piercing screeches at random, the second had the folding hinge fail and the cup disassemble, and when I looked back at the first I could stress fractures on the plastic in the same location.
Since that experience I switched to the Bose QC IIs. The audio quality is not quite up there with the sonys, and the Bluetooth seems to always pick the wrong devices (it can connect to two at once but it loves to connect to an iPad and work Mac ahead of my phone) but they’re still going strong.