I'm thinking of getting a decent pair of noise cancelling headphones, as noise from neighbours and road outside has increased lately.
Anyone know if the good ones (eg the Sony WH-1000XM4 over-ear style) work with standard - ie old - hi-fi, in terms of cable connection/jack, etc. All the talk about USB and Google assistant, etc, in the literature and specifications on these new headphones make me think it's gone totally over to use with phones and tablets, etc. Wireless connection would be good, but only if it the transmitter part will plug into my existing old-style amplifier somehow. Any ideas?
Update for anyone interested (probably not!). I bought top-of-the-line Sony noise-cancelling headphones. They've exceeded my expectations. Connectivity turned out to be no problem - I don't need to use a phone app (thank Christ). They connect via Bluetooth with my laptop - this is effortless and seamless; I didn't have to do anything. I'd never used Bluetooth before, thinking it was just for hands-free phones or something - but it seems absolutely great. My Wifi doesn't even need to be on.
The noise cancelling is superb. Really wish I'd bought them years ago, but the price (and scepticism) always put me off. They don't cancel all noise, but for me they cut out all the annoying noise. It's a very natural, pleasing effect - unlike earplugs (which give the sense of muffling). Like sitting on top of a mountain. I've tried it with no sound input, with decent volume music, and with ambient sounds. All excellent. The ambient sounds (eg those 3-hr youtubes of Spring forest bird song or tropical beach waves or women quietly orgasming* etc) particularly good with no other distracting sounds to take away from the ambience.
Battery life is just amazing - after several hours use each day for 3 days, I pressed the battery indicator button and was told "battery about 70% charged". They apparently last 30 hours per charge.
They don't seem pricey to me anymore. 😎😊
* Joking of course.
I'm NOT a big headphone type of listener, but you may wish to subscribe to this guy's channel. Steve has a number of suggestions for headphones. And while not NC headphones, I like Sennheiser and Grado which are open baffle.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s0rkE8ayj74
Interesting, Serge, thanks. It came as a surprise to me that there were earbuds on the market with active noise cancelling function - and some of them have good write-ups, mirroring your experience. I'll look at the pros and cons of headphones vs earbuds, although I currently lean towards headphones, since I think most of my use will be at home, so portability isn't much of an issue.
I like earbuds; V-moda bass - used with double-flanged plugs. If you press them into the ear, they use the anatomy to create an incredible bass to treble effect. They also cut out a tremendous amount of surrounding noise (of course if the music is soft you can hear a bit of outside noise - but not much). I started out with regular headphones, but got tired of the weight on the skull; earbuds were the best solution for me and V-moda bass has the best sound I've ever found. Ialso use a small safety pin, attached to my shirt, to keep the cord from pulling on the earbuds themselves.
So nobody reading this has used noise-cancelling headphones and is willing to share their experience even a little? 😊
@Palladium I saw the title of this and thought of the Pono music player developed by Neil Young.