Let's talk about over ear wireless headphones with ANC

red dragon

red dragon

Justiceforall
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Since most of you guys are still in WFH mode, these things are definitely something many of us are using on a daily basis for phone calls, online meetings, some entertainment in between.
Please share your experiences and recommendations.
A nice and detailed video about some popular options ( it's a little old video...1000XM4 was not out at that time, but XM3 sounds practically same as XM4, while the newer one has slightly better microphones)
I myself have tried all the major ones...we can exclude the Apple one ( mostly due to the price, it sounds perfectly fine for wireless cans.. possibly the best among the closed back options with hands down the strongest ANC)
My preference PXC550 ii> QC35>>1000XM4>Bose NC700
Momentum 3s are great for music ( typical thick consumer friendly sound of Sennheiser , but the ANC is very weak with relatively poor battery life)
I haven't tried the Shure one for more than 5 minutes and don't remember much. Anyone using them? Would love to hear your impressions.
I have tried some Jabra BTNC cans, but in my very short time with them, shouldn't give any opinion, but I won't listen to music in them.
 
Let me share my experience with ANC headphones for the past 4 years.

Started with a Bose QC35 in 2018, bought it just to fulfil my bucket list of owning a Bose headphone.
Was happy with it till I swapped with a colleague's Sony WH-10000X (Mark 1) for a week.

Though QC35 sounded good, the minute you turn on ANC, the soundstage becomes narrow, sound quality in fact goes down with ANC.
With 1000X, it was the opposite. The minute you turn on ANC, the sound quality is improved and the noise cancellation is much better than QC35.

Luckily QC35 was still within the return period and coincidentally Sony launched WH-1000X Mark 2.
Also, this store had PCX500, Bowers and Wilkins PX, 1000XM2 on display.
I visited them over several weekends to test those back to back.
Somehow I ended up liking the XM2 after returning QC35, while my colleague picked up the PX.
The clamping force of PX is equivalent to a torture device.

XM2 became my go-to headphones since then, so much so that I sold a lot of my Sennheiser and Audio Technica cans as they were lying unused.

Late in 2018, Sony India announced pre-orders for 1000X Mark 3 with free XB20 speakers and I couldn't resist the temptation.
The improvements over XM2 were better comfort, better noise cancellation and improved sound quality.
XM2 had a strong clamping force, you can feel the weight and the clamping force after a few hours,
XM3 is much better in terms of clamping force and comfort over long listening periods.
Battery life is awesome on both, though XM3 has better back up.

Let me come to the lesser discussed part of ANC headphones, the microphone quality for calls.
This was an eye-opener for me with XM2, given the cost and the ANC hype, I was expecting a crystal clear call experience.
The experience on my end was very good, as it amplified the other party's voice and the noise cancellation at my end made the listening experience very good.

When people complained about noise, I kept thinking it must be at their end.
I realized the horror only when I had a call with another friend with an XM2, the microphone picks up every background noise and annoyingly amplifies it,
making the overall experience horrible at the other end.

Even a 1K headset does a better job at calls than XM2.
When the XM3 launch specifically talked about improved microphone quality for calls, this was one of the reasons for my purchase.
But sadly, the same is the case with XM3. I don't find any improvement, it's equally bad for calls.
The worst part about the call experience is that the voice of people speaking in the background is clearer than your voice, at the other end.

Switch to 2020 and the WFH experience, I had to get a dedicated Plantronics headset to handle the calls.
The dedicated mute button and good microphone noise cancellation are irreplaceable for calls.
I did toy with the idea of getting a plug in mic for XM3, but didn't want to take a risk and spend the premium.

Speaking about WFH situation, my wife uses a Jabra 65T and they are much much better for a mixed usage scenario.
Call quality is miles ahead of XM2 & XM3.
 
Was watching some YouTube videos on BTNC cans, most of the reviewers don't even talk about the DSP correction in active headphones...they talk about codec and stuff...but for audio, most people won't be able to differentiate between aptx and LDAC, even SBC and LDAC is practically indistinguishable for audio ( I've tried it with XM4, as it was the only pair which could do LDAC and for audio it's simply not resolving enough to make an audible difference)
Most of the youtube reviews are really really bad...just marketing...
 
I am still using my XM2s and after trying the latest offerings, I don't find myself missing out on sound and ANC quality but mic quality, that has been greatly improved in the new versions especially while ANC is on.
And I personally can distinguish b/w LDAC and aptx when I am listening to high bitrate flacs but given that convenience of Spotify etc triumphs the quality for mostly everyone including me, I don't see it as a plus point. Also Sony's equaliser doesn't work when connection is set to LDAC.
 
red dragon said:
Can you differentiate between a nicely ripped 320kbps MP3 vs FLAC from the same CD?Most of the time I can not.
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Yeah neither can I. A few months ago, after I got a nice pair of triple driver earphones and monitoring headphones, I tried getting some true FLAC and WAV tracks of some of my favourite songs and honestly there was almost nothing to separate those from 320kbps MP3 (which I've been using for at least 4-5 years). I think the reverb was slightly richer, and the vocals were very slightly better but honestly unless you're really looking for these differences, it's basically pointless.

What does make a big difference (for me at least) is Dolby. I recently got it for my Windows gaming laptop (yes, from the MS store XD) and it's such a joy for movies and games, though for music it has been a mixed experience: some tracks hugely benefit from it, whole others straight up lose all quality.

Overall I don't think the 10x file sizes of lossless music compared to MP3 is worth it at all, and didn't make sense for me to expand the size of my music collection from 9gigs to something like 90+gigs just for such minute, and honestly irrelevant improvements.
 
TheCoolerPlayer said:
I think the reverb was slightly richer, and the vocals were very slightly better but honestly unless you're really looking for these differences, it's basically pointless.
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I forgot to add one thing regarding this: there are a few artists on whose work the difference is actually tangible and repetitive, and for me those have been AR Rahman and Sparklehorse (among others whose names I'm forgetting rn). So I've got flac tracks of those while for the other 99% I stick to hq mp3
 
TheCoolerPlayer said:
I forgot to add one thing regarding this: there are a few artists on whose work the difference is actually tangible and repetitive, and for me those have been AR Rahman and Sparklehorse (among others whose names I'm forgetting rn). So I've got flac tracks of those while for the other 99% I stick to hq mp3
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That's very true. For me, tracks with high notes especially from Adele sound much better on FLACs as compared to streaming.
Sia is another artist which comes to my mind.
The highs actually tremble and give a harsh, a bit distorted experience but with FLACs the same sounds quite smooth.
In total I have around 50ish FLACs on my phone, for the rest streaming is enough. Also, listening to these with LDAC rather than aptx or anything else sounds better to me but at the loss of the equaliser.
 
KunjanPSD said:
That's very true. For me, tracks with high notes especially from Adele sound much better on FLACs as compared to streaming.
Sia is another artist which comes to my mind.
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Oh right, Adele and Sia (along with LSD) are also in my FLAC collection, and Eden benefits massively from the 'game mode' in Dolby. Definitely fun to experiment with various settings and formats, even if a bit time consuming. Haven't personally owned an LDAC earphone hut do have a pair of aptx 1More Stylish TWS-I and I can hear very noticeable difference in bass and treble quality with aptx on vs off. Soundstage and clarity also gain a bit. I can only imagine what aptx sounds like but for now I'm content with my triple driver in ears which I've tuned to my liking!
 
TheCoolerPlayer said:
Oh right, Adele and Sia (along with LSD) are also in my FLAC collection, and Eden benefits massively from the 'game mode' in Dolby. Definitely fun to experiment with various settings and formats, even if a bit time consuming. Haven't personally owned an LDAC earphone hut do have a pair of aptx 1More Stylish TWS-I and I can hear very noticeable difference in bass and treble quality with aptx on vs off. Soundstage and clarity also gain a bit. I can only imagine what aptx sounds like but for now I'm content with my triple driver in ears which I've tuned to my liking!
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What headphone do you own ?
red dragon said:
Great cans with slightly hot treble...love them.
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Can I use dt 990 pro with system without external amp / power ?
TheCoolerPlayer said:
Yeah neither can I. A few months ago, after I got a nice pair of triple driver earphones and monitoring headphones, I tried getting some true FLAC and WAV tracks of some of my favourite songs and honestly there was almost nothing to separate those from 320kbps MP3 (which I've been using for at least 4-5 years). I think the reverb was slightly richer, and the vocals were very slightly better but honestly unless you're really looking for these differences, it's basically pointless.

What does make a big difference (for me at least) is Dolby. I recently got it for my Windows gaming laptop (yes, from the MS store XD) and it's such a joy for movies and games, though for music it has been a mixed experience: some tracks hugely benefit from it, whole others straight up lose all quality.

Overall I don't think the 10x file sizes of lossless music compared to MP3 is worth it at all, and didn't make sense for me to expand the size of my music collection from 9gigs to something like 90+gigs just for such minute, and honestly irrelevant improvements.
Click to expand...
also DOLBY for Rs. 824 is a one time payment, right ?
also anyone tried hesuvi for windows ? dolby alternative they say which is open source.
 
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princeoo7 said:
What headphone do you own ?

also DOLBY for Rs. 824 is a one time payment, right ?
also anyone tried hesuvi for windows ? dolby alternative they say which is open source.
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I currently have Samson SR850 and SA Raven, both bought on the recommendation of an audiophile friend in the audio industry. Couldn't be happier.
As for Dolby, it's a subscription based service after the first week which is free, but there are ways to get it for free as well :p
Hesuvi looks interesting, I will give it a spin sometime soon as I prefer to open source stuff to closed source if possible. Not sure how this escaped my eye when I was looking for Dolby and DTS alternatives.
 
What's Raven? Never heard of it. I think there's an 80ohm version of DT990 which can be powered by phones/ entry level DAP.
I have the 250ohm one. Never really tried with a phone, but kind of works straight out of laptops ( highs are really piercing in certain songs)
More efficient models should sound better without an amp.
My laptop ( a 2019 LG gram) came with Dolby something..is it the same thing ( an orange interface)?.. tried it few times, it doesn't make things better or worse, just changes the sound significantly. Sorry, just checked again, it's called DTS audio. Thought these are for multichannel (5.1 or more) audio ( basically compressors)
 
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red dragon said:
What's Raven? Never heard of it.
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Neither had I until about a year ago, but it's an Indian brand, and I found out after my purchase that their headquarters is in Navi Mumbai, same city I'm living in lol. This was my first decent pairs of audio gear, and coming from a budget Sony MDR XB on ears it was worlds better. I learnt to appreciate details in songs thanks to these, and my friend helped me learn how to tune earphones to my liking :)
I use jetaudio+ on android for tuning+music player, and equalizer APO+ (for which Hesuvi is a plugin I think), along with Dolby Atmos (only for games and movies) on my laptop.
red dragon said:
Thought these are for multichannel (5.1 or more) audio ( basically compressors)
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Hmm so the thing with Dolby Atmos is that it simulates 7.1 channel audio on any pair of wired earphones. You can try it online here to see for yourself, but be warned that it's a mixed bag - I think it depends mainly on how good the source quality is. It works brilliantly fro most movies and yt videos (and games), but for some it loses all details and just adds loads of bass all around. Still, I'd say it works quite well when it does, and currently it's worth it for me. It also greatly improves the quality of audio on Zoom for some reason, and that is much needed since my college is using that. For music tracks it can either work very well (Eden, Sparklehorse, Cigarettes After Sex, Sinatra etc), may depend on your taste (Cage The Elephant, Imagine Dragons, Arctic Monkeys, old bollywood, Radiohead etc), or just straight up suck (The Strokes, Voidz, Julian Casablancas, Daft Punk etc). Unfortunately I don't know of any way to keep Atmos turned on with specific songs, though since I use MusicBee I imagine there may already be plugin out for it haha.
Hope this helps!

Edit: Here's a picture of the Atmos interface. I've found the Detailed preset in Game Mode to be the best sounding across music, movies games, as well as YouTube. Dynamic is honestly trash, and so is music. The only other usable modes are Movie and Voice, tho constatnly switching the modes is a bit of pain and I find Game with detailed preset to be good enough. Having said that I do switch to movie mode for movie marathons and binge watching sessions, and voice mode for meetings more than 4 hours long.
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Oh!! It's our good Signature Acoustics ( probably also known as proaudio home or something similar) almost a decade ago back in India bought a wooden IEM from their store.
Great to hear that they are still around and kicking.
The owner is/ was a TE member. A guy called Amarveer/ Amarbir also had an audio gear store ( probably from Ludhiana) ....golden days of TE!!
Probably bought a fiio amp from either of them ( somehow still have those old fiio rubber bands...lost the IEMs and amps years ago...feels like from another life...gosh!! I'm so old and still fighting Mac vs PC wars...from Leopard, Snow Leopards day..vividly remember how Lion screwed up my first MacBook Pro when installed over ML...Apple used to give 2 CDs with their laptops, one with OS another with copies of iPhoto, iMovie etc. and iWork was not a free program. GarageBand was the first DAW I ever used, without any training whatsoever...it was so easy....hated ProTools so much, it seemed so complicated at SRFT Kolkata...memories...memories..)
Thanks mate for bringing up some old memories!!
 
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red dragon said:
Oh!! It's our good Signature Acoustics ( probably also known as proaudio home or something similar) almost a decade ago back in India bought a wooden IEM from their store.
Great to hear that they are still around and kicking.
The owner is/ was a TE member. A guy called Amarveer/ Amarbir also had an audio gear store ( probably from Ludhiana) ....golden days of TE!!
Probably bought a fiio amp from either of them ( somehow still have those old fiio rubber bands...lost the IEMs and amps years ago...feels like from another life...gosh!! I'm so old and still fighting Mac vs PC wars...from Leopard, Snow Leopards day..vividly remember how Lion screwed up my first MacBook Pro when installed over ML...Apple used to give 2 CDs with their laptops, one with OS another with copies of iPhoto, iMovie etc. and iWork was not a free program. GarageBand was the first DAW I ever used, without any training whatsoever...it was so easy....hated ProTools so much, it seemed so complicated at SRFT Kolkata...memories...memories..)
Thanks mate for bringing up some old memories!!
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Damn that's a roller coaster of emotions. I've started out with GarageBand on my old iPad (Air 2 I think) recently as well, and yes SA is Signature Acoustics! I bought the Raven as with my first paycheck from an internship and made some of my first tunes using it. Thanks for reminding me of these, though this is much more recent than yours haha. Thanks for sharing dude, means a lot :)
 
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