I love the ATH-M50x, and they were my travel headphones for years. I usually prefer open back headphones, but I bought the M50x's because I needed some noise isolation for noisy airports, plane rides, etc.
I switched to the Anker Q30 for my travel headphones for convenience and noise cancellation, but even without noise cancellation, the ATH-M50x's provided noise isolation good enough that it delayed my switch to noise cancelling for years (and even there, it was mostly switching to iPhone and no longer having a headphone jack that pushed me over the edge).
I wouldn't call them overkill. You're going to get the audio quality you pay for with the M50x's.
But if you want good noise cancelling headphones without spending $300 on it, I continue to flog the Q30's as exceptional budget options.
Woot! has refurbished whatchamacallit-XM4s closed-back ANC over-ear headphones for like half of their MSRP. It's not factory refurbished, but they do come with the 3.5mm cable.
Noise cancelling is usually designed NOT to filter out vocal frequencies though, and that's the explicit use case. So my advice is don't pay the premium for noise cancelling.
I was looking at earbuds too. Generally I usually hate how they sound but yeah the noise isolation could be good I guess. Any recommended pairs? I’d like to spend below $100 but I don’t really have a budget here and would go higher if it was a good combination of features and sound quality which is why I was willing to consider the ATH-M50x.
Those Soundcore Q30 dropped price on Amazon Canada recently. Price is certainly nicer than the ATH-M50x. Maybe I’ll try those for now. If they work for this use case great and if not I’ll use them with my phone and find something else for this use case.
I have a pair of MPOW Air I’m trying right now (wired mode). Their isolation is not bad but they don’t sound great and they aren’t that comfortable over long sessions. It’s so weird switching from open back to closed back. Everything sounds off.
I have some cheaper ANC Bluetooth ones and yeah I’ve noticed they don’t block voices much at all. Almost the opposite.
I have some cheaper ANC Bluetooth ones and yeah I’ve noticed they don’t block voices much at all. Almost the opposite.
That's partly by design, and partly a limitation of the technology. ANC works by feeding back the inverse of the frequencies you just heard, which means it's real good at cancelling stable frequencies (like engine noise on an airplane), but useless at cancelling constantly changing frequencies (like speech).
I picked up the Soundcore Q30. With ANC on they actually block voices surprisingly well but unfortunately the moment you plug an analog cable in they turn off all ANC and power down and refuse to power back up. ANC only works when wireless. Apparently they used to support ANC when wired but that was removed in a recent firmware update which mine have and people claim Anker support has said that feature is not coming back.
Going to try them wired for a while longer to see if passive noise isolation is good enough for them to they do well in this noisy environment. If not I'll start using them as my primary wireless set for my phone.
My Bose QC II did the same thing when I plugged them in on the plane. I wasn't sure if it was user error but now I'm guessing it is probably a firmware / hardware limitation.
Are earbuds on the table? (I prefer not having things in my ears but in terms of noise isolation it's hard to beat a good seal with decent tips) What's your price range?
After I realized the Soundcore Q30 were not going to allow ANC when wired and their passive noise isolation is just ok I dug out some of my old earbuds and yes those had way way better noise isolation. They sound terrible but they solve the core issue.
Now I wonder what “good sounding” earbuds cost and whether “good sounding” for earbuds is actually good. RTINGS claims the Turtle Beach Battle Buds are “good” for gaming but they also call them “ muddy and dark sounding”. They are pretty affordable tho. Their higher recommended options are over double the price and they say those still don’t sound amazing.
I think personal preference is going to vary wildly, but I have a set of Audio Technica LS200is that I like the sound of. I'm not sure you can still buy those, however (sometimes they discontinue a line, like the IM02s before that.)
I prefer not to have anything in my ears, but when I need noise isolation over ANC or I'm traveling and every bit of space counts it's hard to beat a decent part of earbuds/in-ear monitors for portability.
Looking at what's currently available from Audio Technica, the "ATH-E50 Professional In-Ear Studio Monitor Headphones" seem like they might be targeting about that same quality/price range (MSRP about $200).
I haven't personally tried them, but if you're able to test them out the Shure Aonic 3 or 4 are in the $200-300 range as well. Or the Etymotic Research ER4SR.
In the $100 range:
Audio-Technica ATH-E40
Shure AONIC 215
Etymotic Research ER3SE
Edit:
Depending how you feel about Wirecutter picks, they actually just updated their wired earbud reccs:
ccoates wrote:Are earbuds on the table? (I prefer not having things in my ears but in terms of noise isolation it's hard to beat a good seal with decent tips) What's your price range?
After I realized the Soundcore Q30 were not going to allow ANC when wired and their passive noise isolation is just ok I dug out some of my old earbuds and yes those had way way better noise isolation. They sound terrible but they solve the core issue.
Now I wonder what “good sounding” earbuds cost and whether “good sounding” for earbuds is actually good. RTINGS claims the Turtle Beach Battle Buds are “good” for gaming but they also call them “ muddy and dark sounding”. They are pretty affordable tho. Their higher recommended options are over double the price and they say those still don’t sound amazing.
I haven't been in the wired game in a while but the wireless options are stepping up their game. Samsung, Jabra, and Sony have some pretty good offerings. They aren't cheap though.
I'm not seeing those Moondrop Aria's to buy online in Canada
If I get a pair of headphones rated for a particular impedance, does my headphone amp have to be rated for that particular impedance? What if the headphone amp is rated for too much impedance? I'm considering a 13 ohm pair of headphones but my SB X4 only puts out 32-149 or 150-600 ohm.
Also, do all headphone amps only have a couple of modes/buckets of impedance rating like this, or are there products that have more granular control? I know the X4 isn't the most wonderful amp out there but was curious what I should look for if aiming to replace it down the line.
Then there's a chance you'll damage the amp.
Think about it this way
- amp is rated for X ohms.
- if you attach speakers with < X impedance, that's going to result in higher than expected current (cos Ohm's Law, I=V/R)
- running higher current through your amp can lead to distortion ("clipping" as you saturate the amp's output), or damage to its components.
Anyone got a recommendation for headphones that come with a decent graphic eq app for Windows? My workplace won't let me use equalizer apo long term but say a software solution that comes with headphones would be allowed. I don't care how crappy the headphones are as long as the EQ works with any headphones.
What the current recommendation for over-ear, Bluetooth, noise canceling, headphones? I'm wanting to go used, and am looking for the most bang for the buck kind of deal. if someone has a pair here that's even better. maybe 100$?
Sony WH-1000XM4 are my recommendation for best-in-class but good luck finding a pair for a hundo or less.
Ankler Soundcore Q30
Or the Q35 if you can find them on sale.
You can get a refurbished Jabra Elite 85h direct from Jabra for $150:
https://www.jabra.com/deals#?pfs=dis...
Sony WH-1000XM4 are my recommendation for best-in-class but good luck finding a pair for a hundo or less.
You *might* be able to find one of the previous generations of the ones Jonman is recommending like the 900n, xm2, or xm3 for ~$100. But I'd worry about battery life in terms of how "used" they are. I had the 900n and the xm2, and in terms of sound quality they were very similar. Sony seems to iterate on things like battery life/NC/etc. as opposed to them sounding drastically different.
Amazon's got the Q35 Wiz mentioned for like $130 new, so that might be the most straightforward option in that price range!
so i bought a used XM3 just now off of ebay for 115 (it was 90 before shipping). wish me luck... ill need it for ebay.
If anyone is intersted in helping me off set the cost, I have a used beats solo 3 in pink (40+ shipping) and air pods 1st gen (20$ + shipping)
I had to repair the beats just now by putting a peice of foil up the aux jack, but now they work perfectly fine. If you want to know what the heck im talking about, here is a video explaining it (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YKOC...).
the air pods last for about an 1.5 hours tops before the battery dies.
so i bought a used XM3 just now off of ebay for 115 (it was 90 before shipping). wish me luck... ill need it for ebay.
If anyone is intersted in helping me off set the cost, I have a used beats solo 3 in pink (40+ shipping) and air pods 1st gen (20$ + shipping)
I had to repair the beats just now by putting a peice of foil up the aux jack, but now they work perfectly fine. If you want to know what the heck im talking about, here is a video explaining it (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YKOC...).
the air pods last for about an 1.5 hours tops before the battery dies.
Just checking, you're not planning on using those as gaming headphones are you? Cos they've got waaay too much latency for htat.
Just checking, you're not planning on using those as gaming headphones are you? Cos they've got waaay too much latency for htat.
I guess for gaming he could use a wire, worst-case scenario.
Jonman wrote:Just checking, you're not planning on using those as gaming headphones are you? Cos they've got waaay too much latency for htat.
I guess for gaming he could use a wire, worst-case scenario.
Yes, but the NC doesn't work if they're wired (at least not with my XM2's).
Yes, but the NC doesn't work if they're wired (at least not with my XM2's).
It absolutely still works wired on the XM3's.
I have the Bose QC II and the Anker Q30. The Bose are slightly better in a few ways but the Ankers are a hell of a deal and you can get them as low as $60. The Q35 support lossless Bluetooth if you want that. Keep in mind that many of the higher end ones don't even support it.
Edit: Whoops, just saw that you ordered some headphones already.
ccoates wrote:Jonman wrote:Just checking, you're not planning on using those as gaming headphones are you? Cos they've got waaay too much latency for htat.
I guess for gaming he could use a wire, worst-case scenario.
Yes, but the NC doesn't work if they're wired (at least not with my XM2's).
not for gaming, mostly for music and plane rides.
What the current recommendation for over-ear, Bluetooth, noise canceling, headphones? I'm wanting to go used, and am looking for the most bang for the buck kind of deal. if someone has a pair here that's even better. maybe 100$?
I've got a pair of Cowin E7 Pros that I got after a recommendation on this thread. I'm not an audiophile so I have no idea how they stack up by those standards, but as a bang-for-your-buck option I like them a lot. They're currently going for $60-$80 or so new, and I'm seeing at least one used listing for under $40 on eBay.
I use a headset for work (phone calls) and it broke recently.
I thought I might invest in a decent gaming headset to use for work and play, but looking at some of these like the HyperX stuff it seems like the norm is for wireless headsets to only be compatible with PS5 or the Xbox, not both.
Any reccs for a headset compatible with PS5 and Xbox, with good mic quality (since phone calls for work)?
(It looks like the Steelseries Arctic 7x might work for PC, Xbox, and PS5 because it uses a USB dongle. I haven't really used voicechat on the PS5 so I don't really grok what people mean when they're having trouble with "chatmix", however. Does that mean audio levels can't be tweaked at all, even via PC or an app?)
I have a pair of Arctis 7s, but I've only ever used them on PC, so I can't speak to their console compatibility.
Can explain how chatmix works with these - there's two audio channels available to Windows for the headphones - Arctis-Game and Arctis-Chat.
I set my default Windows output to Arctis-Game, and that routes audio to the headphones when switched on, and to my speakers (which are daisy-chained off the dongle) when the headphones are off. Meanwhile, I tell Discord to use Arctis-Chat as it's audio output.
Now on my headphones, I've got two volume dials - a master volume dial on one ear, and a mixer dial on the other ear. If the mixer dial is in the center (which has a hefty detent, so it's easy to find), you get 100% of both channels, scaled by the master volume. Move the mixer dial away from center and you start to attenuate one channel, so you can scale chat down, or game audio down.
It works really well.
Ahhh, thanks! That makes sense.
So I think what folks are trying to say is that those dials won't work with PS5, but you might still be able to use the popup onscreen menu thing. Maybe I'll roll the dice.
Ahhh, thanks! That makes sense.
So I think what folks are trying to say is that those dials won't work with PS5, but you might still be able to use the popup onscreen menu thing. Maybe I'll roll the dice.
Reddit suggests that master volume still works as expected, but the mixer dial won't do anything to chat when used on PS5.
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