Earphones for use on airplanes

[BillConnerFASTC]

Title about says it all. Curious what anyone has found that makes listening on an airplane good and perhaps provides active "noise cancellation" if it really helps. All in a compact and lightweight package if course.

Thanks.

 

[Amiers]

Anything Beats. Personally I've yet to find earbuds that cancel and only a true over the ear can drown out the sounds of those engines.

Plus it might help ya get that extra pack of peanuts from the lady stewards for looking cool with them.

 

[FMEng]

Noise cancelling electronics works well compared to brute force attenuation. The nice thing is it cancels steady noise, such as in an airplane, but allows through human speech, so you can carry on a conversation and don't feel shut in. I have an older pair of Sonys, one of the first to market. Bose and others also make them.

 

[MNicolai]

I use Shure SE315's. Brute force attenuation as opposed to active noise cancelling. They work really well, come with a small footprint, and don't need a power source. When I listen to music on my iPhone, I only have to run it up to about 25% because that's all it takes to cut through the surrounding noise. If I forget my ear plugs and walk into a noisy environment, I'll drop them into my ears and not even plug them into my phone.

Probably better options out there for the casual traveler who doesn't want to drop quite so much coin, but I've got a handful of friends who have also various iterations of the Shure earphones and everyone seems to love them.

Other great thing is the cable can be disconnected from the earbuds and replaced. Can't tell you how many times I've lost a good set of headphones to a bad cable. Now I always have a spare cable on me when I'm on the road.

 

[seanandkate]

I've got a pair of Bose on-ear noise cancelling headphones (that I couldn't find on their website just now--wonder if they still make them!) and I swear by them when I travel. Light, and with replaceable cable like Mike's Shure. I'll also wear them unplugged with the noise cancellation on when I'm trying to catch a few winks on a flight. Not the cheapest option, but they've lasted well over lots of travel, so I've already got my money's worth.

 

[egilson1]

I have a pair of Bose Quite Comfort 2s. I was able to trade in my version 1 pair for $100 off the new ones about 3 years ago. I love them. They work well, and after a 6 hour flight they are still fairly comfortable.

 

[jxgriffi]

Like Mike Nicolai, I use the Shure 315's too. LOVE THEM.

 

[jonliles]

I just retired my Bose QC2's for a new set of QC35s. The QC35s are also blue tooth. I can stream the inflight entertainment to my tablet or laptop and bluetooth the audio to the QC35s. The QC2s went to my son.