[ghaff]

Looks interesting. I have the Bose QC-20s and they're great for traveling. They're great on planes although, as others indicate, they're better at background noise than voices. I held off on noise canceling headphones for ages because I pack pretty light and refused to bring over-the-ear headphones traveling--and then hesitated at the price.

But they were really worth it. I never realized before using them how much I was cranking up the volume to compensate for the background noise even with ear canal phones that isolated relatively well.

[eric_h]

I've got the QC-35s. They're actually pretty good at lowering speaking voices to the below intelligible level, IMO. This was also my first pair of noise cancelling headphones ever, and holy shit what a difference they make on an airplane; I'd never really appreciated how loud it was until now.

I also find that I listen to music at lower absolute volume now as a result of the noise cancelling; I'm fairly certain I did some damage to my ears over the years, and at least I'm not continuing it at the same rate now.

They are bloody expensive, though.

[andrewaylett]

I carry Etymotic earplugs with me at all times; they're cheap enough not to worry too much about losing. I also recently got myself a pair of Plantronics Backbeat Pro headphones -- they're great; pretty good at blocking background noise turned off, really good with the noise cancelling on (even in the office) and not nearly as expensive as the Bose headphones. And they sound great both with a wire and on Bluetooth.

I should probably buy some Plantronics stock, shouldn't I? Just a happy consumer :).

[zimpenfish]

I have a couple of pairs of ER20s and some ER20XS for commuting, gigs, noisy places, etc. They do a good enough job that I can go to e.g. a Rammstein gig and not suffer afterwards (tinnitus flareup, headache, etc.)