Audiophiles youa ssistance please : Headphones

[BigJonMcQuimm]

Hi

So its that time of year where I gotta go shopping for xmas goodies.

The old man has requested a pair of Bose headphones.

I am not sure if they are any good? I use Shure E4Cs and love their noise blocking and sound reproduction capabilities.

Are the Bose in the same league? Should I show him the error of his ways?

Does the noise cancelling really work. I recall that this feature was a little hit and miss depending on the environment.

Thanks in advance

[FlossyThePig]

Only his ears will be able to provide the real answer

[BigJonMcQuimm]

Right.. er thanks...

I will rephrase the question.

Would you buy Shure E4cs over the Bose Quiet Comfort 3s?

[k-ink]

I had the in ear type from Ultimate Ears - the "triple fi" model. They were about as good as those type get. But even with a dozen different type of ear plugs to choose from, the bass and isolation is never going to approach a proper closed back full sized pair of cans.

So if you are into real isolation maybe look at the closed back Denon models north of £200. A little mobile headphone amp like the Graham Slee Voyager would be a great benefit too (so you don't rely on the weedy ipod internal amp).

[BigJonMcQuimm]

Many thanks.. had not considered the amp :-)

[Toffer]

Faced with this exact dilemma in Denver last week with a long flight home and needed an additional set of headphones...

I already had a pair of in-ear Sony sound cancelling headphones and three pairs of other open-backed headphones (Sennheiser HD477, Sennheiser HD650 and AKG K240). I had a listen to some closed back headphones and finally chose Sony MDRXB500.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Sony-MDRXB500-Extra-Headph...

The Bose headphones have a warm instantly likeable "non-hi-fi" sound. I think your father will love the Sony headphones. By the way they are one of the few really efficient headphones that do sound great with Apple products (iPod Nano etc.). For less than £50.00 you will not go wrong...but they are not hi-fi...but this does not matter on a noisy plane or train! I wore them for 7+ hours and they also worked great on the plane...better acoustically than in ear headphones and much comfier too! Good luck!