Tired of listening to more than just your music? Not down with handing over any of your hard-earned cash to the specification-hiding folks at
Bose? Have a look at Sony's latest, the MDR-NC300D. These flashy earbuds boast an in-line noise-canceling module with three separate modes: a general mode, airplane mode and one for trains / buses / cars. Granted, we get the idea that those selections are a bit of marketing hype, but whatever the case,
Sony asserts that these buds will eliminate up to 99 percent of undesired jibber jabber. All that's required is a single AA cell, which should provide right around 20 hours of noise suppression. Interested? Pony up ¥40,900 ($415) and prove it.
[Thanks, Waroxy]
posted Jun 8th 2009 2:04AM
For the low price of +400$ only
I will pass sony
More expensive than the PS3? Good job, Sony.
his and her's sets starting at only $1,000 including tax. listen to your financial stability go down the drain in HQ.
Sony must be out their F*ckin minds. I'd rather blow that much on a pair of Sennheiser PXC 450's. I bet they aren't any better than the Sony Mdrnc22 older model for 65 bucks on Amazon. I'll pass
i have a pair of those MDR NC 22 and they are average at best. they are only successul as the buds act as proper ear plugs, the noise canceling deal hardly doesnt work at all.
@ dos...Thanks for the feedback tip on the MDR NC 22's I was about to buy a pair. I think I'll put up with my v-Moda bass freqs for a lil bit longer. Raidio shack had em on sale for 30 down from 50 bucks. I'd only see myself blowing 400 on Sennheiser PXC 450's.
I've got a pair (of NC22's) and have got to disagree, granted it depends where you're using them, but they work extremely well on flights/ noises like that, computer fans, buses, road noise from cars etc, they aren't that good for sharp noises/high pitched noises, they block out a lot of unwanted noise for me... I think it really depends where you are gonna be wearing them, but there's a noticeable difference (in the context of where I use them) between just passive NC and having that coupled with turning active NC on
Sure you'll pass, but if the president or some CEO, richard branson or someone, want to work on the plane, then they can afford to toss 400 at it easy, so just because they don't go for the 'low end' of the market doesn't mean it's mad.
The PXC-450's are excellent both for noise canceling and a decent pair of phones. Could not see much of anything beating them, they have no compromises, aside from size. Plus I got them for only $300 on Amazon.
i also had the mdr-nc22: i can see from the photo that these are very similar in shape. i thought they worked pretty well, myself, but i found them painful to wear for more than a short period. i'm a normal sized person, but they don't really fit into my ear canals. i returned them in favor of the MDR-NC40, which work just as well (if not better) and are far more comfortable, and available online for around $62.
Nah, I have some MDR-NC22's and they are really very effective. But the caveat is they have to fit well, I'm lucky that they are quite a good fit for my ears so they cut out a lot of noise (active). But even a small gap significantly increases noise.
I actually been using almost exclusively sony noise canceling earphones. Yes I've tried the bose and sennheiser and they both crap at best. I use them on long haul flights (more than 12 hours). Headphones didnt work to well esp on economy seats as everytime you shift your head, it moves out of place.
My first one was the mdr nc11. It was good but hopelessly unreliable and the oversized bud didnt help at all. the 2nd was nc22 which is better but i hate the box design as it's to heavy to be left unhooked. So i got the NC32x which is essentially the same but smaller switch with lanyard design so the battery is located on the back of my neck (which makes it really light). It is also a perfect match with my walkman s2 mp3.
I also like the fact that it can filter airplanes engines really well but as soon as someone speaks to me near my ear, the NC32 mic on the earpiece make the person voice clearer while suppressing the engine noise, I dont have to remove the earpiece to listen to anyone which is a huge plus to me as i hate taking shifting or removing in-ear phones once i'm comfortable with it.
This is why SONY is in trouble. Spending money to develop and market expensive headphones when they should be spending it on ways to reduce to the cost of the PS3.
Totally different divisions of Sony, my friend.
lmao.
Poor PS3 got involved on a headphone topic.
All other brands of noisecanceling headphones also cost a bundle actually, and it's od because with shrinking chips you'd think it would be easy to bake a DSP once you got through the tough bit of designed it and tweaking the algorithms.
They should make the thing record too though, since you have 2 mics attached to your ears anyway they could double as microphones for handycams or something.
How exactly did the PS3 end up here?
@Wwhat - Great idea!
Stealth microphones - looks like you're just listening to tunes but you can secretly record too! (In fact, the recording probably could work at the same time as you listening to tunes... of course for that it would need a music-cancelling ability for the record function too...)
And being situated at the ear, they should provide good stereo separation too...
Unfortunately back in reality I imagine the microphones are presumably crap and only just good enough to record jet engine noise :) But still.
I was thinking that to effectively cancel noise they would be pretty good mics with a flat response and a wide range since noise is actually using more frequencies than music, high and low and inbetween, and there is actually a recording technique which is used for very high quality recordings where they have a fake head and fake ears with microphones in the center because studies have shown that gives the most realistic rendering of a 3D soundscape for HRTF and such, I kid you not, it's used by science and pro's, and as I recall reading once, by some movies.
Link of an example of the fake head thing http://www.neumann.com/?lang=en&id=current_microphones&cid=ku100_description
On sale for a mere $2599.- http://vintagemicrophone.com/JShop/product.php?xProd=170
Was that price a typo?
I mean..... nah... it's gotta be a typo.
Well, not quite a typo though... According to Sony's own press release the MSRP of MDR-NC300D will be ¥30,975 (29,500 before tax) and be available on June 21 in Japan.
http://www.sony.jp/CorporateCruise/Press/200906/09-0602/
Using the currency exchange rate @ 1USD = 98.6444 JPY available at XE.com... It will be about US$314
The JPY/USRuble is getting more and more a pain for non-US companies if you want to sell something to there. I must say 340 usd sounds bad but if I convert it to Euro´s its a mere 225 euro which is rather affordable, expensive but still ok in my mind. Put that together with the avarage wage of a Western European which exceeds that of an American makes matters only worse. I seriously hope the US will do something about their poor currency in order to make non-US companies interested to develop anything for their market.
Shh... most American's are not aware that the reason imported stuff costs so much in the US is because the government went on a printing spree which diminished the value of the currency. They just think new prices are unreasonably high... they make no connection between high prices and the huge deficit, miserable economy, and the loss of value of the dollar against every currency. Welcome to the nightmare.
I really like the look of the headphones, but unfortunately, I cannot afford them. Nor can I justify $300 to $400 earbuds, noise or not. Not yet anyway.
My Shure SE210 earphones already do a fantastic job isolating sound and cost only a third of this...
i have se230 and i love um.
well if u take into consideration the fact that people line up for Monster beats... unfortunately, why not these in-ears.
I've had the Bose QC2s for years and thought they were great on planes until I recently got the Klipsch Image X10s. They block out just about anything and everything, sound excellent and are less than these Sonys, and they don't need a battery since they are passive isolators - just use the double flange gels.
I think if I were in the market to spend this much on noise canceling headphones I would rather get a full size pair.
The new Nokia headphones with 8 mics and bluetooth look interesting. The price scares me though!
Only if they'll let me test them on in the store then I'll know if it worth it.
I'm not going to spend that much on something that I'm not sure how much better it is from its competitive.
I had several sony network-walkmen (or whatever they are calling their mp3 players) including the NWS703FB with noise cancelling headphones. And even though the price of the mp3 plus noise cancelling headphones was only a fraction of these it worked extremely well on flights, it was the first time i could sleep for a longer while in a plane.
So I imagine for this price they must be even better and sony is still the most advanced company when it comes to hardware thats cutting edge... (even though there software and marketing sucks).
Folks,
In case you understand Japanese, Sony explains how the MDR-NC300D works and more (spec, pricing, etc)...
Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DcJy4PfLDhU
Video (HD): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DcJy4PfLDhU&fmt=22
Press Release: http://www.sony.jp/CorporateCruise/Press/200906/09-0602/
I have been using the Bose QC2 headset for several years now, mostly on airline flights. They do a stellar job both in noise reduction/elimination and sound reproduction. They were around $350.00. I can't see spending more 'hard earned cash' on a company that does not innovate, it would rather catch up.
The quoted price is wrong. As listed on Sony Japan, the MSRP is 30975Yen (tax included), which is about US$319.
Sony Japan: http://www.sony.jp/headphone/products/MDR-NC300D/index.html
Engadget Japan got it right: http://japanese.engadget.com/2009/06/03/mdr-nc300d/
Also worth noting, NC300D seems to use the same 16mm transducer as Sony flagship in-ear MDR-EX700, which has a MSRP of US300 of its own (though street price is US$200 now).
Spending a lot of money on headphones to listen to MP3s lol is a joke in it self.
$415 for this shit? I wonder how much it costs Sony to actually make these...
You made a typo, should have said:
"Sony introduces shockingly freakish and ugly MDR-NC300D noise-canceling headphones"
But I'll try and let this one slide guys.
$314 is stupid for a pair of headphones that are not much different to ones on the market. I've got the Etymotic HF2's and these say they cancel out 98% of outside noise, plus the noise-canceling module is built into the earphones so no battery is required, and the cost? Just $179. IMO better quality and better priced.
Good job. Judge the quality of a product not even on the market yet. Brilliant.
go and buy a Sony X-Series walkman!
This baby has the digital noise cancelation built into the unit and can accept Line-Inputs for external audio (like the onboard multimediasystem in airplanes), too!
And it's cheaper than the standalone headphones.
I've got the Etymotic 6i headphones, I think I spent about $75 on them and I can mow my lawn and use my weed whacker while listening to my iPhone. Guess what, they don't require a AA battery, they don't make me change settings based on where I am, and they don't cost $300-$400 depending on whose post you read.
What's next Sony? Planning on releasing any proprietary headphone accessories? :-(