Does anyone have much experience with these headphones? I am looking for similar but dont like headphones pressing on my ears. Are the quietcomfort suitable for that? Is the ultra a worthy upgrade? Is there anything better on the market now? Redddit seems to suggest that Sony ANC is superior.
(That's their "picks", but they have reviews and tests on a lot more models. I just can't find a good place to link to just "all of the noise cancelling headphones".)
Don't just skim the list, click in and take a look at the individual products. They do pretty extensive quantitative measurements of all of these headphones and provide useful commentary alongside (e.g., the Sony ones are shallower so if you have big ears they might get uncomfortable). They have full frequency response graphs for the noise isolation, recordings of how it fares against some test samples, etc.
They also measure some less typical stuff like "clamping force" and "ear breathability" that's hard to tell just from briefly putting them on in a store.
I've personally tried some (older) Sony against (older) Bose and I can't really comment on whether the ANC is better because they pushed on the arms of my glasses hard enough and the shape left them resting _on_ my ears instead of over them such that they hurt to wear after a little while. They could be head and shoulders above, but that would be worthless to me because I would never use them. So I'd mostly echo what the other commenter is saying--they're all pretty much "great" in passive/active noise cancellation and sound quality. Just get whichever feels best to you.
For some reason, I find the ANC of the quiet comfort to be very uncomfortable. When I turn on the ANC, it feels like there's a sort of pressure and I really dislike it.
On the other hand, I don't mind the ANC from my sennheiser momentum.
I chose the Sony 1000XM4 because the RTINGS graph showed the strongest cancellation in the 60Hz range. All my tormentors are in the AC-powered machine noise range.
He was operating on outdated advice. Yes, 1990s ANC headphones would only work on repetitive noise, but the technology has advanced by leaps and bounds since.
Sony and Apple AirPods Max are considered best-in-class.
> Sony and Apple AirPods Max are considered best-in-class.
Inherited some Sony WF-1000XM4 and can confirm that they're really good at noise cancelling. Plus they have an ambient mode (with optional "filter in voices") which is helpful when you need to interact briefly.
I'm more sensitive to noise than most -- AirPods Max are an incredible tool for me. Sometimes I just wear them without listening to anything to block out office noises, conversations, etc. Unavoidably, they get uncomfortable after a while, but it's on the order of hours.
This is starting to sound like a sales pitch, but if anyone like me is on the fence, they're really an incredible product that has improved the quality of my life, which I don't say lightly.
For me the problem is mainly when trying to sleep, specifically, at Burning Man, where it can be very difficult. I used foam earplugs for years, but they leave something to be desired.
The AirPods Max…get them on my ears correctly, and I’m in a forest. It’s uncanny. It was the most profound alteration to my experience there in years.
> I am looking for similar but dont like headphones pressing on my ears.
I have both noise cancelling "big" earphones and earbuds. I agree with you that the the "pressing on the ears" is annoying, so I usually wear the earbuds: the noise cancelling is slightly worse, but the latest noise cancelling technology is really good enough.
Keeping to the spirit of the article, it's maybe simpler to think of all of the "good" ANC headphones (Bose, Sony, Apple) as a tier above standard headphones and just try them all for which one you personally like the most.
I went Sony after trying both them and the Bose. The ANC was about the same (this is maybe 5 years ago) but the sound quality on the Sonys was head and shoulders better than the Bose. They're incredible on a flight.
