RadioShack’s folding noise canceling headphones, while not being anywhere near on par with high quality noise canceling headphones like the Bose QuietComfort series, make a nice pair of headphones, which distinguish themselves to be far better than the sort of thing you would find in the grocery for ten bucks. While their on-ear design is not amazingly comfortable, they are rather portable as non in-ear headphones go, and although they look a bit funny, they have a sort of quirky attractiveness to them. The noise canceling is certainly not amazing, and will not block out all sound by any means, it does a good job cutting through the background drone, and makes it possible to enjoy music while riding noisy busses and trains. I am hoping to upgrade to a nicer pair of headphones sometime soon, but these have served me well for close to two years, and are really not a bad option.
Noise canceling technology, for those of you who don’t know, uses an electronic system to cut background noise. Essentially, each ear cup has a tiny microphone in it, which picks up background noise, and feeds it into a chip, which generates a reverse wave. This is then played through the speaker, and the result is that the two waves cancel each other out, leaving you with only your music. While it is a really nice theory, different headphones apply it with differing degrees of success, and RadioShack’s pair is definitely on the lower end of this continuum. Even so, however, these headphones are a big step ahead of a regular pair, and for $40 are really quite cheap. Their sound quality is also surprisingly good for their price range.
As I mentioned before, RadioShack’s folding noise canceling headphones are rather uncomfortable. Their on-ear design winds up squishing your ears after half an hour or so, and makes wearing them not a particularly comfortable experience. You will also notice that your hair will occasionally get caught in the joint on top. However, the in-line volume adjuster is very convenient, and the battery life is amazing, shutting out background noise for around 30 hours on a single AAA battery.
Oftentimes, a person will spend $200 on an mp3 player and not worry about headphones, and end up with bad sound. For people like that, I would strongly recommend these headphones. I certainly would not say that they are amazing, however, and those who are looking for real quality should by all means look further. For most people, however, the RadioShack folding noise canceling headphones would be a major step up.
