JVC HANC250 Noise Cancelling Headphones - Black

I travel fairly frequently on work and the long international flights
were getting to me. I'd originally bought a Solitude Plane Quiet II
headset which I was fairly happy with except for:
1. Quite tight around the head, difficult to wear for long periods of time.
2. Good sound quality, particularly bass, but an annoying hiss and missing treble and highs during audio playback.
3. Fairly heavy owing to needing 2 AAA batteries.

A
colleague at work bought the JVCs and we did a comparison. Initially I
was skeptical because my Solitudes were around the ear vs the JVCs
which are over the ear. We went into a very noisy server room to do the
test and I have to say the performance of the JVCs was astoundingly
good.
All three issues that I had with the Solitudes were absent.
1. Extremely comfortable and light. Great build quality.
2.
Even better noise canceling performance despite the over the ear
design. Even with the active noise cancellation off, merely wearing the
headset provides good sound insulation.
3. Great sound quality, very balanced bass and treble, zero hiss.
4. Better battery life than the Solitudes despite needing only one battery.

In addition, the JVCs have some of the benefits of the Solitudes over the industry's most famous headset (Bose).
1. Conventional cable (not proprietary like Bose).
2. Audio passthrough even when the battery dies.
3. Single AAA battery, non-proprietary (if you forget to charge your proprietary Bose battery, your headphones are dead).
4. Great price/value tradeoff compared to the Bose QCII or III.

The only negatives of the JVCs I could perceive are:
1.
No volume dial control on the headset itself which is less of a
convenience as you now have to turn down the volume from your ipod or
computer rather than just reaching up and dialing down.
2. Headphone cable is fairly short (43in) so its difficult (not impossible) to use it with home stereo equipment.
3. Replacing the battery is a bit difficult and involves popping the right earpiece out.

Update
(Jan 2008): I was able to compare these against the Bose QC3s. The
Bose sound quality (you will not believe this) is really bad compared to
the JVCs. Specifically the sound of the QC3s is muddy with extremely
muffled treble. I am even happier now that I bought these instead of
the Bose.

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