How to Buy the Best Noise Reducing Headphones

Just about everyone these days owns some form of mp3 player, whether a phone, ipod, or whatever. Unfortunatly these are almost always paired up with headphones worth about $2. To get the most enjoyment out of your music you need to get a pair of noise reducing headphones. What exactly are noise reducing headphones? Well, read on and find out.

How do noise reducing headphones work?

There are two types of noise reducing headphones; active and passive.

• The active noise reducing headphone has a microphone that listens to the outside noise and then produces a negative noise to cancel it out. The downside of this type of noise reducing headphone is that it needs a power supply and it's only really useful if the outside noise is constant, such as on an airplane or train noise.
• The passive type is simple, it goes into the ear canal and simply blocks out the noise. The disadvantage of this type of noise reducing headphone is that it's uncomfortable and also doesn't allow you to hear anything at all.

So for your commute the active type is best since you can cancel out the train or traffic noise. To block out conversations you'll need the passive type of noise reducing headphones.

What size of noise reducing headphones should you get?

Well, as I said earlier, the active noise reducing headphones need a power supply, so they'll go outside of the ear and be quite large. The passive noise reducing headphones are much smaller as they go inside the ear canal and need no power supply.

Other considerations for noise reducing headphones

Noise Reducing Headphones on Amazon.

Obviously you want your music to sound the best so get a great pair of noise reducing headphones with really good frequency response. I would also suggest you read noise cancelling headphone reviews from such sites as Consumer Search or Consumer Reports. These noise cancelling headphones reviews are written by unbiased users just like yourself and can really help you choose the best set of noise reducing headphones. You'll also find some helpful links right here on this page.