I had a problem. I ride the bus to work, and sometimes you just get tired of all the noise, sometimes from the other bus riders, sometimes from the engine, or maybe I just want to focus on something else for the commute, like a good song or two.

My search for a decent pair of these type of headphones started there. A set of headphones that don’t cost an insane amount of cash lead me to these, but before I pulled the trigger on the purchase, a friend of mine beat me to the noise-cancelling trend and got the Sennheiser PXC 250 noise-cancelling phones first, which I tried on a few times. They were good and the noise-cancelling feature worked well, my main gripe with those was that the battery is in a separate, bulky case down the headphone cord, they required two AAA batteries, and they don’t block as much noise as I wanted (i’ll explain this later).

I found the Audio-Technica QuietPoint ATH-ANC7 noise-cancelling headphones on amazon.com. I read lots of reviews that customers wrote about them and decided that the value was well worth it, and if I didn’t like them I could always return them. My main points about what makes a good headphone in this category are noise-cancelling ability, comfort, sound quality, and price. I’ll discuss each.

Noise-cancelling

This is the feature that’s been a buzz-word for a few years now in the headphone world. It was (purportedly) originally designed for use in airplanes. Essentially, the way it works is there are microphones on the outside of the headphone that listen for outside noise, then send the inverse of that sound wave to your ears, which cancels it out. This ends up sounding like a very light “hiss” to your ears as you turn the noise-cancelling feature on.

According to the website for the product, this feature works best at removing ambient sound that falls into the 500hz or below range, things like engine noise, fans, and vent noise. They do not filter things like human voices or loud, high pitched spikes of noise (such as a police siren or a PA announcement on a plane). The cups do block a mild amount of this type of audio on their own, though, simply because they cover your ears.

The noise-cancelling feature of the headphones requires a single AAA battery, which is hidden inside the left headphone cup, and also seems to give an extra “punch” to your music’s sound quality and volume (if you are listening to music, you can use these with or without music on and the headphone cord is detachable).

Comfort

Any set of headphones, noise-cancelling or otherwise, need to be comfortable. This point is really up to interpretation on the headphone wearer. Some people hate over-the-ear style headphones, some hate earbuds. I prefer either the earbud-style headphones (see my review of the V-Moda Vibe earbuds, for instance, not the iPod earbuds, which are terrible.), or over-the-ear style (like the headphones being reviewed or my set of Grado SR-60 open-air headphones). The ATH-ANC7 are very snug around my ears, I wear glasses so it can be a bit too snug at some points and can make my glasses shift a bit, but it’s a small sacrifice for having a decent amount of ambient noise blocked from the get-go, which only improves after the noise-cancelling function is turned on. They seem about as comfortable as this style of headphones gets, I can’t say I’ve worn better because I haven’t.

Sound Quality

I consider myself to be someone who isn’t exactly an “audiophile” per se, since a real audiophile prefers reference (read: flat) audio reproduction, with no sweetened highs or lows. I like my music punchy, so good (or “enhanced”) highs and lows are important to me, so a lot of audiophile headphones are disappointing. These headphones do a great job with music and movies. I wouldn’t say it’s the most bass-heavy set of headphones I’ve ever used, but they satisfy my desire for good quality audio. Background noise being filtered out helps you hear a lot more details of your music (like very soft passages), where with other types of headphones you would need to crank the volume even louder, destroying your hearing.

Price

These headphones carry a retail price of $219.95, but Amazon’s price is significantly less, and at the time of this writing they cost approximately $124, which is less than a third of the cost of the Bose version of these headphones. This is an amazing bargain for headphones of this quality. This is the ATH-ANC7′s best selling point over other noise-cancelling headphones in this style.

Summary/Conclusions

Overall, if you’re in the market for headphones with noise-cancelling, I won’t hesitate whatsoever in highly recommending the Audio-Technica QuietPoint ATH-ANC7 Noise-cancelling headphones. They are worth every penny of their price. As someone who primarily uses them on the noisy bus ride to and from work, I can’t stress how much sanity this can gain you some days. I’m writing this review on a plane with the headphones on, with music from my iPod cranked through them, and I can barely hear anything but a very slight rumble of the plane engines. This does wonders for concentration. Those stupid Bose commercials aren’t lying, it really is sublime, and paying one-third the price of the Bose version is even more sublime.

Review update, 2/2/2008: my recommendation of these headphones was featured on Leo Laporte‘s podcast “The Daily Giz Wiz”. Leo’s a good friend of mine and I really appreciate the shout out! You can find the podcast these were mentioned on TWiT.tv.

The preface: Recently I was on the hunt for another not-too-expensive set of in-ear style headphones that could replace my Sony EX71 earbuds. Despite the Sony units only costing $35, they have better bass and better sound than most of the much more expensive earbuds you find out on the market these days. Several months ago I purchased a set of Shure e3c earbuds from an Apple store thinking “Hey, they’re expensive, they must sound good too!”. I was disappointed. Disappointed to the point of returning them, and back to the Sony pair I went.

Just a little rant/side note: For whatever reason Apple stores sell near-reference quality earbuds with the intent of you using them with iPods… they must think expensive headphones means “good for average consumer”. They are being mis-marketed. Most people are going to absolutely hate near-reference earbuds… Why? Because they don’t sweeten (or barely sweeten) the low-end or high-end frequencies (otherwise known as flat frequency response).

Which brings me to these: The V-Moda Vibe earbuds don’t even attempt to be reference quality, which I love. They retail for $100 and are also sold at Apple stores and at amazon.com, among other places. I was sent a review set by a nice person at a PR firm and decided to try them out.

Right off the bat, the box and design of the earbuds grabs you. They sell these in several different varieties such as “Flashback Chrome”. They are very stylish and design-conscious. The earbuds themselves are made of some kind of alloy metal, not plastic like the Sony phones. The marketing on the package tells me that these should sound as good as they look. Do they?

Well… to be honest with you, in my totally non-scientific testing comparing them to the Sony EX71 — they almost sound the same to me. This really isn’t a bad thing per-se… but they cost $60 more than the EX71 at retail. They definitely have better build quality than the Sony earbuds… but it feels like the Sony earbuds block out external noise better. I do seem to notice that the high-end is less muddy on the Vibe phones, but it may all be in my head.

Other than sound, the V-moda phones have a shorter, thicker, more durable cord than the Sonys, but sometimes I find that it’s almost too short if I have the iPod in a lower coat pocket. The Sony EX71s have a cable extension which is practically required to use them, but it does give you a nice long cord (on the positive side, The V-moda phones headphone cord does not get tangled up nearly as easy as the Sony). The V-moda phones come in a small leather case with a piece of plastic to wrap the cord around so it tangles less… I don’t use that particular item, but it’s a neat idea from a company who seems like they’re really trying to break into the budget headphone market.

Similar to the EX71, the V-moda Vibe phones include several sizes of silicone ear fittings, to try to get the best fit you should experiment with all of them. I ended up taking the smallest size I believe, they fit perfectly without falling out of my ears.

Other than that, I don’t have much else to say about them. If you already own a set of Sony EX71 phones, I would tell you to maybe try these out and see if you like them better (Apple stores let you return headphones if you don’t like ‘em). If you don’t own a decent set of earbuds, have $100 laying around, and would like to try ones that are damn pretty (and pretty good sounding), I recommend giving these a shot.

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Cons