Full size, $100 range, active noise reduction, beige/brown/tan color headphones?

[CuriousOne]

Hello.
My ATH-ANC7B gave out magic smoke and quit working, so I'm looking for replacement.

What I need:

Over the ear design
Active noise reduction system
Classic looks with leather, metal and tan/brown/beige colors.

Budget is $100 +- $20-30

By looking on Amazon, I only see two models, fitting into this requirement:

Naztech i9BT and Bohm B76.

While headphones look OK, both companies are quite shady, especially "bohm" and no in depth reviews of these headphones are found online. Any ideas about them, or did I miss something else?

 

[obobskivich]

IME Bose is still the "gold standard" for ANC, and if I'm not mistaken they have an offering through ColorWare (so pick whatever color scheme you want). That will be a few times over your budget though. The aesthetic requirement is probably the real killer here (well, that, and you're asking for ANC (and probably expecting it to work) at a lower pricepoint than its conventionally available (at least in a quality product (and that doesn't just mean Bose - their top competition from Sennheiser, Sony, and Koss all run in the $250+ range too)). There's plenty of decent headphones around your budget if you just dump the aesthetic and ANC requirements (e.g. Sony MDR-V6, Sennheiser HD 280 Pro, various Koss models, Creative Aurvana Live!, etc). The Audio-Technicas you're replacing can be had for the same price too, but aren't meeting the aesthetics you want. Otherwise you're probably going to, realistically, need to raise your budget, and/or re-consider your aesthetic demands. If high isolation is a big deal, you might also look at IEMs instead (they also tend to survive mobile (ab)use better).

 

[CuriousOne]

My main requirement is ANC, and if I have to dump aestethics, I will buy ANC7b again, or maybe, ANC9. Sure, they are not ideal, but they provide quite good noise reduction and sound quality, especially after some EQ is surprisingly good. On one flight, I had chance to exchange them with neighbour's BOSEs, and while indeed Bose sounded better and provided better noise reduction, I would say that difference was quite subtle, absolutely not worth the 2.5x price difference.

 

[obobskivich]

My main requirement is ANC, and if I have to dump aestethics, I will buy ANC7b again, or maybe, ANC9. Sure, they are not ideal, but they provide quite good noise reduction and sound quality, especially after some EQ is surprisingly good. On one flight, I had chance to exchange them with neighbour's BOSEs, and while indeed Bose sounded better and provided better noise reduction, I would say that difference was quite subtle, absolutely not worth the 2.5x price difference.

It's probably very fair to say that Bose's grip on ANC is not "lock tight" like it was even just a few years ago and many companies are absolutely racing to beat them at their own game (seems Sony is probably the most likely to get there first), but at least as of today, they're more or less still beating everyone else, even if by only a little. Yeah, you will pay a brand tax for the name, and you will pay more just to have that extra 10% - welcome to the world of hi-fi. "Value" is a really subjective and funny thing, and frankly not something worth arguing about imho. If you can't live without ANC, I'd say just get the ANC7's again if they made you happy. That said, the ANC9's different "ANC modes" certainly look interesting (I remembered them from Tyll's older ANC review), and the price has come down *a lot* on them (so maybe that indicates something else...). But then again, if you already know the 7s do what you want, and they're currently right within your budget on amazon, seems like an easy choice...

 

[cossix]

Honestly I'd pick up a used pair of Bose from eBay. Your budget is somewhat low for a quality pair of ANC cans but if you buy used, you should find something you like