Noise cancelling headphones

[Daragon]

After a decent pair to replace my inner-ears which I am hereby done with (find the awkwardness of sticking them right in my ear outweights any benefit)

Not looking for anything too pricey, so that excludes Bose and the like.

Have happened upon Sennheiser's PX360 and JVC's HANC250 both for around ?70-?80. Now the Sennheisers I've tried on in HMV and while not active noise cancellers, they do block out a fair bit of noise due to the earcups completely covering my ears, they sound very good and I quite like how they're foldable making them alot more portable.

The JVCs however are active noise cancelling phones and apparently block up to 85% ambient noise. Yet to try these though and I've read that despite all the positive reviews, the noise cancellation technology works by increasing the volume, which I see as a bit of a cop out.

Does anyone own either or have had experience of either?

[Brad]

I've had a pair of active noise cancelling 'phones. Brand escapes me (mid-price though). I'd never get them again. The made a hissing noise. They *seem* to be geared to block out the noise of being on busses, planes etc. I don't think they're doing anything clever like detecting the ambient outside noise and cancelling it out. IMO you are far better off just getting passive closed cans. Oh, mine were Altec Lansing. Never again.

[Boody]

I bought a pair of Goldring NS1000's about 2 months ago and been reasonable happy. They don't "fold" but they rotate to be flat and come in a hard case. The build construction seems decent but obviously not as solid as something that doesn't rotate/fold. Main reason for buying them is I keep buying sennheiser in ear buds but damaging them.

Noise cancellation seems to be decent, I've owned cheap noise cancelling headphones before but these seem do seem to have some effect. I haven't tried them in a lot of locations but pretty sure they work by feeding in an equivalent of background noise but out of phase, so no exactly louder.

My only real complaints are the cups as a bit smaller than I expected, they cover my ears but don't fit over them. I do have a largish head though. The price seems to have gone up ?10-20 since I ordered as well.

http://www.superfi.co.uk/p-2397-goldring-ns1000-noise-cancelling-portable-headphones.aspx

[PaTaito]

For the money imo these are hard to beat:

http://www.iheadphones.co.uk/audio-technica-ath-anc7b.html

Not the best in the looks dept, but great sound and great active isolation.

I saw them on amazon for about ?99 recently,however the B revision are the ones to get because they are improved over the basic model(without the lower case b on the end of the model number) quite a bit.

Audio technica make really nice headphones.