Q: This month, I am flying to California on a flight that is quite long, almost 7 hours with connections. I have not flown in quite a few years so I am not up to date on the whole flying experience. A friend of mine who is a frequent flyer checked my airline and flight number and told me the airplane has personal in-flight entertainment screens for watching movies and television. He also said I have to use wired headphones to get the sound. The only wired headphones I have are the $500 HIFIMAN Sundara planar-magnetic headphones. Given their expense I don't want to take them on a plane, and they are open-back models that let sound in and out so they are probably not the best choice for an airplane anyway. I would like to get some new headphones to use with this airplane entertainment system, but don't want to spend a lot as this trip is costing me a fortune already. What would you recommend for $150 or less?
- L.R., Castle Shannon, Pa.
A: Noise-canceling headphones are especially well suited for flying. They use electronic circuitry to actively eliminate external sounds, greatly reducing the ambient noise from the engines and your fellow passengers and allowing you to hear much more clearly. Some flyers put them on and activate the noise cancellation to create a quieter environment for relaxation, even when they are not using them for entertainment.
ZVOX soundbars and soundbases are famous for their AccuVoice feature, which makes television dialogue much easier to understand. ZVOX recently expanded their product line to include headphones, the first of which is the $149 ZVOX AV50 Noise-Cancelling Headphones with AccuVoice. As you can gather by the moniker, these headphones not only have noise cancellation, they incorporate the AccuVoice feature along with it. I was told the AccuVoice implementation in the headphones is much milder than it is in the soundbar and soundbase speakers, but in the closed environment of headphones this mild implementation makes an outsized difference. The AV50 headphones are available in four colors, come with a case and can be used with a Bluetooth or wired connection.
At $149 the ZVOX AV50 Noise-Cancelling Headphones with AccuVoice are a hair under your $150 limit, but through the end of July you can save $30 with the coupon code JULY30 and buy them for only $119. The code works exclusively on zvox.com.