Kensington 33084 Circumaural Noise Canceling Headphone

Pros: Delivers on all aspect of its promised bullet points. Cheap headphones you can afford to have stolen or lose. To sum up, pros are heavily owed to the fraction of the price you would have to pay for a pair of Bose, Audio-technica, or Dre Beats.

Cons: Be that as it may, its sound quality is dwarfed in comparison to the fore mentioned brands. In a blind study, you'll definitely recognize the crisper highs of your Bose or Beats. In fact, typical overhead non-canceling headphones in the 30-40 dollar range will fuller lows and highs.

Other Thoughts: Worth the money if you are a traveler or must bite the bate that is the noise-canceling gimmick. For everyday low maintenance use, go with regular headphones if you want rich sounds.

Pros: Noise canceling capabilities are pretty good. This is only the second pair of noise canceling headphones I've tried so I can't compare. The padding on each ear gives a noticeable (passive) decrease in ambient noise without the active noise canceling. Once turned on, the noise canceling works pretty well. Low and mid-range noises are extremely reduced, while the highs aren't as much (this is something the foam helps take care of though). While active noise canceling doesn't excel at canceling sounds that are changing constantly (music or someone talking vs. a constant hum from your computer for instance), I found it still makes these dynamic sounds less distracting. The TV a few feet away was much less noticeable while I listened to music on the headphones, while my computer and A/C are almost completely silent.

Comfortable. The tension strap on the top could get annoying to some, but it can be removed easily

Easily folds up to much smaller, portable size for included pouch.

Cons: Sound quality isn't very good. That is to be expected at this price range, though I've had $10 non-noise canceling headphones that sounded much better. With video games they sound fine, but with music they sound very flat with VERY little dynamic range. High range noises are barely produced at all. Bass doesn't sound too bad. However, it feels like all the sounds are shoved into the mid-range.

Short cable.

Other Thoughts: Strangely, turning on the noise canceling seems to make the dynamic range and sound quality much better. This doesn't appear to come from the fact outside noise is being reduced. I tried this in extremely quiet spaces to confirm. There actually is an increase in high frequency sounds from music being played and a much better variance in the reproduction of all frequencies from the music.

The noise canceling works well enough that it can be a little spooky not being aware of what's going on around you! :) Though it can be pretty cool by helping you feel really absorbed in a game.

Lastly, they are like what I assume most active noise canceling headphones are like: You can turn the feature on even without the headphones plugged into anything to get the canceling effect anytime.