He is right when he says that you will not be able to block out the voice of a loudmouth or baby sitting directly next to you. From what I have read dynamic wavelengths of sound can’t be blocked out because they don’t repeat enough for the canceling technology to trap them. That much, I agree with.

However, the headphones do block out low-volume vocal hubbub, clinking coffee mugs, typewriter sounds, etc. from the background.

Try this experiment. Go to your office or work station – anywhere people are working all around. You need someplace where there is steady, quiet, background conversation and related people noises. Something like the typical cubical farm is ideal.

Situate yourself in a place where you can hear the background chatter coming from different directions, but try to stay in an area where you can’t hear clearly any one or two conversations verbatim. Those bad boys are, as Charles says, here to stay.

Then put the headphones on and turn off the noise cancel feature. For now, leave the music off because that makes valid comparison impossible, at least without special equipment.

Note how, even with the ear cups in place you still hear the verbal droning in the background. It’s like a low, dull humming. You can’t tell what people are saying, but the mindless nattering is still there and I would make the case that it is even more annoying with passive headphones than without because your ear can’t resolve any specific words. All you hear is muddy, midrange noise, giggling and the like.

Anyway, now flip on the circuitry. Most of the babble is now gone. It evaporates into a mild, white noise which is not very disturbing. The white noise sounds sort of like your cd player if you turn on the power supply without inserting a disk.

So Charles is partly right. Distinct conversations from the loudmouth right next to you manage to get through and probably always will until you inject a foam plug directly into either your ear canal or your rude neighbor’s cake hole.

But the steady rumble of indistinct office-wide murmuring, cell phone calls, and the like goes down considerably with these headphones using the circuitry. You will never get all of the prattle. But a good portion is toast.

On top of that, almost <u>all</u> mechanical noise spawned by fans, ventilators, photocopiers, etc. virtually disappears with the circuitry on. In fact, once you use noise canceling headphones, I think you will be surprised as to how much aural refuse is out there.

I work on a cubicle farm and these headphones have made a tremendous difference. I think if you try my experiment you will agree that the noise cancel feature does work.

I have not tried these phones in an airplane or a subway and I seriously doubt that the circuitry is as effective because there’s just too much racket going on. But the headphones do work well in the kinds of office contexts where many people work. I would also suspect that in the airplane context, you would see a dramatic reduction in engine, fan and background noise.

Obviously, if you play music into your headphones, the difference is even better. What I especially like is the fact that with noise cancellation, you don’t have to crank the volume to shunt out the garbage.

Have not tried any other noise canceling headphones, but I definitely like the SkullCandy brand.

Thanks for reading.

Michael

Here’s another way to think about it. Before I used NC’s I’d get on a plane and turn my iPod to the max just to hear it clearly. And at that level it didn’t cut out any noise from people, babies, and ambient sounds. With NC’s the ambient sound was “for all practical purposes” gone. As for the human elements the NC’s lowered, not eliminated, babies crying, but turning up the music I only needed it about halfway up to hear clearly what was being played. From then on the music drowned out the rest of the noises and by the time I’d landed I wasn’t so stressed from the noise of the flight.

I’ve been using the Skullcandy NC’s on trains and subways and throughly enjoy them. I’ve had the in-ear canal style ($350) and while it cut out the noise effectively I didn’t find them easy to put on after returning from the restroom, for example.

All I’m saying is the NC’s can be found for $45, and they match in quality to several sets of $200 pairs I’ve tried. It’s not often you can find such a great deal and that’s why I’m excited and happy.

1. Will it quiet down the engines and ambient noises so I can keep my music volume to an acceptable level that won’t cause more injury?
2. Is it comfortable enough to wear for extended periods outside of planes, like sitting and reading a book?

I’ve had quite a few versions of Noise Canceling headphones from Bose to Sony and Skullcandy is my first test of their line.

Without going into much detail I’m throughly impressed with the SC from comfort, actual use, and in a minor point called feedback. When you turn on cheap NC phones from anyone you’ll usually hear hissing in the background. There is none of that here in the SC. It’s comparable to a higher end Bose set I use and one really cool feature they added is the removable headphone cable! Thank goodness! If you’re sitting down and not listening to anything the cord gets in the way. But on a practical side I can use different lengths of cable depending on what I’m doing. Short cable for riding on a subway or car, longer cable when I’m on the riding lawnmower continuously looking over my shoulder or an even shorter cable when I’m riding my bike.

You definetly get what you pay for and with the SC you get a lot more than what you pay for. They won’t make me throw away my $300 set but they’ll definetly make me throw away almost everything else. I’m throughly satisfied with their fit and finish and detail work.

I found a pain on the internet for $45 without the LINK option. For $45 you’ll be hard pressed to find a better deal for headphones without NC let alone including. If you want a decent set of NCs but not exactly sure how often you’d use them then I recommend the SkullCandy Proletariat. Whatever the reason I’ll bet they’ll put a smile on your face.

What I’m saying–and what all the literature about noise cancellation says–is that it can effectively cancel much steady-state sound within a particular frequency range: sounds like engine noise, a/c systems, the background buzz of office fluorescent lamps, etc. It is not very effective at all at cancelling impulse sounds of varying frequencies like speech, crying, etc. If you doubt this, put on a pair of noise cancelling headphones with the switch off and ask a person near you to speak. Now turn the switch on and ask them to speak again. Hear much of a difference? No, you won’t.

I would advise readers looking to purchase any brand of noise-cancelling headphones to make sure they can be returned after trying them. The marketing is definitely ahead of the technology.

I am curious as to whether you were using the headphones with music or without?

A very unsatisfying and (dare I say) inaccurate review, Judie. Unless Skullcandy has managed a huge breakthrough in NR technology, there is NO active NR system (including Bose, which remains the gold standard, though at a hideously expensive price) that will silence crying babies, chatty seat mates, etc. It’s unfortunate that you would lead your readers to believe otherwise. Active NR cancels noise in a fairly specific frequency range–hence, they’re very effective at silencing engine noise and other background sounds at a similar frequency. It does little for crying babies and the sound of speech, in general. I know because I recently returned a set of the latest Bose headphones, after expecting them to provide the kind of noise isolation that I get from Etymotic. It’s not even close. With Bose NR engaged, I still was perfectly able to have a conversation with the flight attendant.

I’m sure that the pads which surround the ears on the Skullcandy ‘phones are providing some passive reduction of external noise (which you also get from the Bose), but anyone expecting the “silence” you’re suggesting will be seriously disappointed, especially if that crying baby happens to be in the seat behind you. The best in current noise reduction (and the only type which provide something approaching true silence) is the passive isolation provided by in-the-ear-canal ‘phones from Etymotic, Shure, Ultimate Ears, etc.

This is not to say that the Skullcandy ‘phones (or others employing active NR) are “bad” at what they do–they’re not–you just need to approach them with the right expectations.

Just to give you some update. The Skull Candy looks exactly like the Creative HN-700. Right down to the jack, Volume control, On/Off and Power LED. The main difference is that the Creative HN-700 does not comes with the LINK Technololgy cable.

Given that the HN-700 cost about half the Skull Candy, it is hard to justify it as a good buy.

A link to the Creative HN-700 for comparison:
http://www.creative.com/products/product.asp?category=437&subcategory=439&product=11392

I don’t have the other headphones to compare, so hopefully others can write in with their experiences. :0)

Can you compare the Skullcandy Proletariat (SC-NCL $149 list but $109 at Amazon, SC-NC $99 list but $75 at Amazon) to the leading competitors: Sony MDR-NC50 ($199 list but $125 at Amazon), Bose QCII ($299 list), or the Plane Quiet Solitude ($199 list)?

http://www.the-gadgeteer.com/review/skullcandy_proletariat_noise_cancelling_headphones_with_link_technology

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