Noise Cancelling Headphones – A Frequent Traveller's Dream Come True

The nature of my day job requires me to travel. A lot. There was once I had to take a 3 hour internal flight from Dallas, Texas to Los Angeles before taking the international route to Hong Kong (and vice versa) in 2 days! Just for an important business conference. Although I like the travel on the job, trust me, travelling on a 20 hour flight can really take its toll on you. Especially if you're don't always have the luxury of travelling on first or business class. The long hours. And not to forget the incessant hissing of the aircraft engines. It just gets into you sometimes.

I probably thought I would have to live with the noise pollution on the flight. Pretty much as long as I'm still with the company. But a recommendation from a good friend of mine changed all that. He urged me to buy the Bose Quiet Comfort noise cancelling headphones. It was a hefty purchase but well, for the quality of the travel experience I enjoy now, it was definitely worth it!

What are Noise Cancelling Headphones?

Noise cancelling headphones are basically audio headphones that uses technology to eliminate ambient noise through the use of active noise control. Through a microphone and electronic circuitry, an anti-noise sound wave with a polarity opposite of the one arriving at the microphone is created. That eventually cancels out the noise within the enclosed volume of the headphone.

One issue is that an over the headphone works much more effectively than the in-ear smaller headphones. That probably means, for those frequent fliers who like to listen to the music while jogging or exercising may need to get a separate set of regular headphones from the ones they bring onflight. But is the hassle worth it? You bet!

How It Benefits Frequent Flyers Like You

In my point of view, the headphones not only allow me to enjoy a far more peaceful journey, I was also able to listen to my favourite music on the flight without competing with noise pollution. This is actually a very significant concern, because I do realize I had the tendency to compete with other noise by just increasing the music's volume. Frankly, I wasn't sure what was the impact of that on my hearing but since getting the noise cancelling headphones, my inclination to increase the volume had been greatly reduced.

Besides that, on certain flights which allow travellers to watch movies on demand or play video games, I find myself easily engaged in the storyline or excitement without the irritating hissing from the drone of the aircraft engine. In fact, the headphones was so good in reducing clatter that there were times when the flight attendent had to tap on my shoulder to get my attention. Ha!

Nowadays if you ask me whether there's anything I couldn't leave home without, other than my luggage & passport, well that's it. My Bose noise cancelling headphones!

David Parker writes part-time. If you're looking to pick up Bose Noise Cancelling Headphones, check out this Noise Cancelling Headphones speciality store.