[FarleyCZ]

Hi all,

this will be a very unusual story. My work requires a lot of relally long car drives. Usually in a group, so there is a lot of time I spend just sitting, looking from a window. I was happy about having SE215 plugged in my ears, but my colleagues could overshout it's isolation quite quickly. My boss, a pilot and a big Bose fan saw me lately admiring his son's QC35, so as kind of a bonus-gift he bought me one too. For the car drives. I'm really happy he did and I'm flattered I deserve such a bonus in his eyes, but problem the is ... I probably should have stopped him.

Few reasons:
- The pressure feeling they create might be just too much. Especially between songs. :/
- The noise canceling sucks out a lot of midrange from the side signal of the recording.
- I definitely hate that inversed fletcher-munsen level-dependant curve Bose adds to their headphones.
- Those MDR-1000x are just making me feel so much courious.

So as I happened to appear in a headphone shop lately, I A/B'd them. And the bass on Sony's is kinda better, upper midrange seemed wierdly smeared, but the highs were kinda rolled off in really comfy manner.

Do you think I should try to ask my boss to have them exchanged for MDR-1000x? (Store he bought it in offers 14 days for returns.)

A friend has them and he loves them, but I'm not sure. My head is kinda bigger than usual and I heard there were some build issues with too much pressure causing them to break. Is that still an ongoing thing? Does Sony still refuses to repair them for free? Also I noticed they create less of that pressure, but does they have the same fletcher-munsen wizardry going on?

Or should I be simply happy for the QC35? I'm definitely overthinking this, but ... dunno. Honesty, right?

 

[cossix]

I used to own the PXC550 and liked it far more than the Bose. The sound was better, the features are better, and the build quality is on a much higher level. It's a bit expensive but sometimes it's worth the cost. I think any ANC headphone is going to have some odd pressure sensation. I like the Senn also because you can use the wire if you want to

 

[Luminance]

You can update QC's firmware which will let you disable the ANC and solve some of your problems.

 

[FarleyCZ]

I did, yeah, but haven't find out a way to keep the noise canceling off while switching to wired mode. Also it's still kinda weak, that app. There's a damn speech synthesizer in the headphones, so there surely would be resources to add option to turn off the Active EQ feature and add a classic equalizer without the fletcher-munsen trick. If that all was controlable through the app, I'd be a really happy person.

 

[Luminance]

Well if you are still unhappy with the Bose's, I would still choose the Sennheiser PXC 550 over Sony due to build quality and more reliable touch input.
But you may need to EQ their upper frequences a little bit (I'm using Android's 10-band Equalizer Pro), as some find them a bit tiring to ears in the long term listening sessions.

 

[FarleyCZ]

That's the thing. I'm not sure if I'm unhappy as the pressure problem and fletcher-munsen mangling could be present on all of those wireless NC headphones. In that case I'm actually quite happy with the Bose. Better to add a bit of bass than taming the treble on an EQ I guess. Thus the questions. :/ I have not many chances to try several different ones as it was pretty much a loyality gift. It would be quite impolite from me. I'm actually feeling quite bad to even doubt the Bose for that reason.

 

[Malfunkt]

I would keep it and sounds like you are adjusting its unique and somewhat artificial presentation.

It is actually a very good headphone. Bose still gives it a bit of their DSP sheen AKG with a compensated EQ curve but they have really created a solid product. You can tell they are a company that still has a genuine passion for audio.

Here is a thorough review and comparison by fellow head-fier Mr. Tech Agent

 

[cossix]

Better to add a bit of bass than taming the treble on an EQ I guess.

It really depends. It's safer to drop a frequency in EQ rather than boost another for the most part. If you're not careful with how much you boost the bass, it may become muddy. Generally it's better to EQ everything down except the bass, so you're not pushing it over 0db

 

[obobskivich]

It really depends. It's safer to drop a frequency in EQ rather than boost another for the most part. If you're not careful with how much you boost the bass, it may become muddy. Generally it's better to EQ everything down except the bass, so you're not pushing it over 0db

+1. The Bose respond really well to EQ IME. If the bass is too much, just pull it down (or whatever freq you don't like - if you want "more bass" I'd agree with dropping everything else, unless you're just in for a really slight 1-3 dB boost (like a "loudness switch" on older gear)). As far as "how to EQ them" - whatever happened to using the device or media player's EQ? Does literally everything need its own app or it becomes unusable these days?

As far as the sound - there is a bit of acclimation period to ANC. Something else I'd point out: how you wear them really influences seal/the ANC effect (which may be part of the "pressure" thing). I'm not trying to get preachy, but I so often see full-grown adult humans wearing headphones like the Bose QC or similar on the bus/train/etc with the headband at the smallest sizing (probably because "it looks better" - I have no idea) - sure it "goes on your head" but it's very tight/compressed doing it. Size it out to your head (my large adult sized head goes out to 6-7 stops on most headphones) and see if that makes a difference, if you haven't already. There absolutely is a "thing" with ANC headphones to sound a bit dead/lifeless/etc compared to conventional headphones or speakers - you have to remember they aren't just playing back your music/audio signal, they're also playing back the anti-wave for the ANC system. So yeah, there are compromises to the sound in order to get the ANC system for isolation. I'll also add that ANC isn't usually a great remedy to blocking out screaming (be it from loud coworkers or obnoxious children) - its better at neutralizing consistent droning sounds (like road noise or the drone of a jet engine), not random/instantaneous sounds.