[geoelectric]

Voices, especially high ones, are kryptonite for NC, but the very latest models do better with them than I've ever heard before. My Bose QC35s and QC20s both do a great job of making a voice six feet away sound at least 20 feet away, and voices over 10-15 feet away not sound at all. I think the QC25s and QC30s will be similarly good. The new Sony MDR-1000X are also supposedly showing next-gen NC performance, according to early reviews.

A set of one of those will probably do the job of lessening voices to something acceptable--they do to the point that my very, very distractable self can work in an open office, whereas older NC headphones did not--but they won't completely remove it.

If you really want that, I'd suggest a set of 34dB+ reduction earplugs. If that doesn't work, put them underneath NC over-ear headphones. If that doesn't work, play white noise on the headphones. I'll be surprised if you heard anything external after that.

[saghm]

I have the QC25; they similalry for me as the other models do for you. I'd highly recommend them to someone looking for silence in an open office

(Note that you'll have to be listening to some sort of sound for them to be maximally effective; simply turning on the noise cancellation without playing music or some other sound through them reduces the noise, but not by as much)

[PabloR]

I knew about the Bose models but did not know about the Sony MDR-1000X. As you mentioned, none seem to completely stop voices, although your experience is very good at least at lessening them.

I was actually thinking of wearing earplugs and headphones at once. Thanks for the info

[geoelectric]

The 1000X is bleeding new. It's been out in Europe for a few weeks, and is just now coming out in US I believe.

After having gone through a number of pretty expensive NC headphones, I can say confidently that up until now nothing matched late-model Bose for NC specifically (music sound quality is another discussion). Parrot came closest, but everything else was way behind and really only blocked airplane/subway/bus-type loud hum, nothing more random or higher-pitched.

However, the initial reviews for the 1000X have all been pretty adamant that the 1000X matches and possibly beats the QC35 for NC. That's an amazing accomplishment for Sony, no lie.

At any rate, you're welcome. I have really bad noise sensitivities that make productivity hard in shared spaces, so your question is near and dear to my heart.