Sennheiser debuts PXC 450 high-end noise cancelling headphones

Audiophile headphone and audio component company Sennheiser announced their new PXC 450 noise cancelling headphones at a little consumer electronics show you might have heard about. Its active noise reduction reportedly allows you to distinguish between the sound of someone speaking to you and the sound of an aircraft, enabling you to have a conversation without actually removing the headphones (although they don't address the social awkwardness of actually putting this into practice, wherein your new best friend in 17F starts shouting at you to be heard over your cans). The closed ear cup comes with plenty of padding and can be collapsed for more convenient storage. Convenience and audiophilia don't come cheap, though -- expect to part with $500 to offend people on planes with these come March.

[Esat @ Jan 10th 2007 10:59AM]

Is $500, REALLY worth it?

[lee @ Jan 10th 2007 11:28AM]

yes they will be worth it,Sennheiser has never let me down,I own 2 pair of HD580's and pair of HDR 130'S. EXCELLENT!

[SteveJ @ Jan 10th 2007 11:39AM]

Maybe. I own a pair of Sennheiser PXC-100's and those are great and yet inexpensive headphones. Given how good those were, I took a chance on Sennheiser's previous "high-end" noise-cancelling headphones, the model number of which escapes me at the moment, and they were truly, truly awful. First of all they didn't block all that much noise and secondly they sounded terrible. I've since found that Bose's noise cancelling headphones also sound lousy, both their older model and, even more so, the newer model. The older model sounds less lousy, but still bad, absolutely no where near the sound quality of, for example, a very inexpensive set of Sennheiser PXC-100's (which unfortunately block no noise at all.)

There's no way I'm going to just trust Sennheiser that this new pair actually sounds good. I will only fork over the money if I can try them, and try them for an extensive period of time with a wide variety of music. If they do sound great, then yes they'd be worth it, but I have little reason to believe that any set of noise-cancelling headphones will sound anything better than poor.

[KC @ Jan 10th 2007 11:48AM]

But... it's the stupid conversations on the airplane that I don't want to listen to!!!

[Kevin @ Jan 10th 2007 1:22PM]

They're sexy, but not $500 sexy!

[vg @ Jan 10th 2007 1:30PM]

these will be great, i have the HD580 on right now and i love them.

[Jeff Hagen @ Jan 10th 2007 3:17PM]

If they're sitting all the way back in 17 and in a window seat no less, they don't have enough mileage status to be worth talking to anyway.

[Hugh Jass @ Jan 10th 2007 6:09PM]

"Its active noise reduction reportedly allows you to distinguish between the sound of someone speaking to you and the sound of an aircraft"
Since we humans can already distinguish between these two sounds, would it not be more prudent for the *headphones* to be able to distinguish between them and cancel out the latter?

[doublej @ Jan 10th 2007 6:32PM]

500 bucks. Spare me, please.

I have a few pairs of PX-100s which are about 60 bucks and have sound that does not leave much room for 300 buck of improvement plus 100 for noice cancelling.

I'm sure they won't be far from the best headphones money can buy - but if thats only a little better than the best headphones 100 dollars can buy, well, you don't need to be Warren Buffet to figure the value probably lies elsewhere.

[dwolsten @ Mar 19th 2007 6:08PM]

$500 is worth it if 1) it has excellent sound quality, AND 2) it really does mute the noise of jet engines.

For those of you comparing these with any non-noise-cancelling headphones, you're wasting your time. Active NC isn't very useful if you're not in a very noisy environment, such as a computer server room/lab or worse, an aircraft. But in an airplane, passive noise blocking doesn't cut it. I have some Sennheiser HD280s and they really don't help that much in a plane. In the office, they're perfect; I can't hear anything but my music; but when I'm sitting next to a jet engine, it's just not enough.

[John Blain @ Jan 30th 2008 10:04AM]

I have to fly a lot as I have to travel around Europe for my job. I’ve found that some of the cheaper noise cancelling headphones don’t do a particularly great job of keeping outside sounds out.

The type with full size earcups are best as they isolate you from the noise physically, as well as via active electronics.

I've stuck with a pair of Sennheiser PXC350 noise cancelling headphones I’ve been had for a few months now. They are extremley comfortable and surprisingly lightweight.