Sony's Noise Canceling Headset Review

Erm, during Chinese New Year, we got lotz of ang pows (red packets, a symbol of wealth and prosperity for the new year. With a random sum of money inside). Forget about that.


Erm, since I bought my NW-S703F walkman 2 years ago, with the special noise canceling headset which I loved so much, my bro got quite fond of it, so he decided to buy this. Luckily, Sonystyle Times Square were sellling this for 50% discount(wat a bargain!). When it comes to music, we really emphasize on sound quality. We are very strict on choosing our headsets, making sure its good quality, and in sound, not too much treble nor base. We have a lot of headsets to begin with, about more than 7 of them(maybe little for some people). We tested them under different conditions, like rain, traffic, even in silence. After getting bored with the conventional 3.5mm driver headsets, we set out to get the silicon earbud headsets. It did an excellent job on blocking the outside, with increased sound quality spectrum, clearly can be herd. However, the driver is too tiny, even when we crank up the bass in our walkman's, it still not clear enough. At that time, we have to choose, everytime we go out, we either bring the conventional 3.5mm driver earphone(for bass driven songs like rock, pop), or the silicone one(for treble driven songs like sentimental, oldies). Well, mostly we will bring the conventional one, because we are more to jpop songs(Japanese POP). Now, after this noise canceling headset was made, it was like a godsend to us. This headset has 3.5mm driver, for clear bass, silicone earbuds + active noise canceling for clear treble.


The Contents: The earpiece itself and instructions, instructions, instructions......

Currently, this is the best headset I ever had. I never fail to take them out for my skating training's.


Batteries needed for noise canceling. One AAA battery


Noise canceling controller.(too bad no volume controller)


Strap location

Lastly, many will ask, what is noise canceling?

The answer:

Noise-cancelling headphones reduce unwanted ambient sounds (i.e., acoustic noise) by means of active noise control. Essentially, this involves using a microphone, placed near the ear, and electronic circuitry which generates an "antinoise" sound wave with the opposite polarity of the sound wave arriving at the microphone. This results in destructive interference, which cancels out the noise within the enclosed volume of the headphone.

Keeping noise low at the ear makes it possible to enjoy music without raising the volume unnecessarily. It can also help a passenger sleep in a noisy vehicle such as an airliner.

Retail noise cancelling headphones typically only cancel the lower-frequency portions of the noise; they depend upon traditional noise suppression techniques (such as their earcups) to prevent higher-frequency noise from reaching the interior of the headphone. This approach has three benefits:

• The demands on the electronic circuitry are vastly simplified.
• Because of the shorter wavelength of the high-frequency sound, active cancellation is much less effective at higher frequencies. To truly cancel high frequency components (coming at the ear from all directions), the sensor and emitter for the cancelling waveform would have to be adjacent to the user's eardrum, an impractical situation.
• For the same reason (shorter wavelength), effective passive isolation becomes easier with rising frequency.

Picked from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noise-cancelling_headphone Thanks wiki!

If thats a lil too complicated, in short, active noise canceling blocks outside noise(like car engine sounds, speech and stuff) by sending inverted sound waves to cancel them(so the outside sound cant reach your ear).

Imagine this: passive noise cancel(silicon earbuds) + active noise cancel(inverted sound waves). You are totally deaf wearing this headsets!

Warning: Do not wear this while driving or crossing the road. You are basically deaf and cant hear the horns!