Audio-Technica ATH-ANC23 QuietPoint Active Noise-Cancelling In-Ear Headphones

Upgraded to 5 star due to superb noise cancellation on my flight out to Hong Kong. Still on the same set of batteries too!________________I will upgrade my review to 5 stars if these have effective noise cancellation on an airplane. Since I won't be travelling by airplane again until April, I wanted to post my initial impressions now.+ Looks well put together, except the control box has the usual non-Apple "plastic" look.+ Inline volume control on the control box is handy if your device is in a pocket.+ No noticeable difference in audio quality between cancellation "on" or "off" in a quiet environment. This is HUGE. Some circuitry degrades regular listening in some brands.+ Uses a AAA battery which is easy to obtain and much cheaper than hearing aid batteries. The AAA is a nice compromise compared to a much heavier AA cell.+ The battery compartment cover is attached to the body even when opened, so impossible to lose it.+ The clip on the control box is effective. It pretty much has to be used unless you want the earphones pulled out of your ears by its unsuspended weight.+INCLUDES the necessary adaptor for most airplane earphone plugs.+INCLUDES alkaline battery, larger and smaller flexible rubber earpieces, and one pair of smallish foam earpieces. The foam earpieces will be the best noise solution for ear canals that they fit, but I'd clean your ear with a QTip first or else the lifespan of the foam will be very short as it attracts and holds ear wax.+INCLUDES small velvet pouch to store all of the above plus the earphones themselves.+ Left and right sides are marked on the earphones in large enough to see type, but it is fainto (neutral) Cables are round, not flat; not too thick.o (neutral) Sound quality is comparable to Skullcandy Ink'd, which is pretty good, but not on part with Apple in-ear phones or Klipsch etc. These are good enough for non-noise cancellation listening- Earpieces are extremely fiddly to put on - they aren't plain "push on a post" types, there is a "cap" at the end of the post for extra secure retention, and pushing the ear piece over the cap is really hard, since the cap is bigger than the earpiece hole. It can be done, however!For years I have been using the regular airplane headphones, which aren't very good because they are cheap, and because they don't block out any external noises at all - they aren't "cans" that surround your ear and fit flush to your head to block out ambient noise, nor are they "ear sealing" ear canal earphones. Typical stock Apple earbuds don't work any better because they don't have any ear canal seal.Then I found out about airplane seat to earphone adapters, about $2-$3 as an accessory here on Amazon. They allow use of ear canal seal earphones and I tried my SkullCandy Ink'd on my last two flights, and it made all the difference in the world. If you don't want to spend the money on noise-cancelling earphones or headphones, just regular $10 or so canal sealing earphones will work fine. Instead of "riding" the volume control on my inflight controls (up for dialog and down for special effects) I can set a lower overall volume and both hear the dialog and not get deafened when explosions go off in the movies. So try getting an adapter before spending the money on these or other "active electronic circuitry" noise canceling solutions.Also beware of "passive electronic circuitry" noise canceling headphones which do not match the ambient noise levels with a "counter" wave, but simply add their own "white noise" to mask ambient noises. IMHO these are a complete con. Read the technical descriptions carefully!Also please note that you get what you pay for. It takes a lot of circuitry, power, and money to cancel mid to high frequencies which are transient in nature. You can, however, effectively cancel constant, low frequency, high volume noises very effectively with cheap, light, and power efficient circuitry - like these Audio-Technica earphones - which is exactly the type of noise on an aircraft. The contant rumble of the engines and rush of the air. The circuitry doesn't have to track that noise very closely! Just match and invert it. That is why I didn't write a review claiming the dog barking and kids talking and the tv in the background don't bother me with these earphones on. They actually bother me a lot LESS, but that is because of the passive isolation provided by the foam tips in my ear canals - they are like very inexpense earplugs in that regard, so for home use or street noise just buy regular non-electronic in-ear canal earphones - you'll be pretty happy with them.Now the only remaining question for me is whether these in ear, compact control center earphones will work better than the large Sony "cans" I had years ago - which really disappointed me. Less noise cancellation than plain "in ear, rubber tipped" modern earphones, and a LOT more annoying to pack, carry, pull out, put on, keep on, remove, and repack. In short, a compact set of ear canal phones like these are really appealing. I will report back in May!

First off, these are not perfect… but then again, no Active Noise Cancellation is.I bought these for a specific purpose. Riding a motorcycle tends to be a noisy affair. Road and engine noise tend to drown out bass notes in particular and add a noise level in general. A high volume level is needed to drown out the road noise and be able to actually hear all the instruments being played. Such a high level leads to hearing damage.Looking for some level of ear protection and noise isolation (not cancelation) I had been using an MP3 player and earbuds. This left me with no phone access but I could listen to music and radio via an MP3 player and the earbuds offered a fair degree is noise isolation. After a while the wired earbuds became a hassle. I purchased some wireless earbuds but the volume level of these were lower than wired earbuds and none of them had any serious bass (skull candy included which advertises enhanced bass).Over time, my 20 year old helmet began to give up the ghost. My replacement helmet seemed somewhat noisier than my previous helmet. After some more research I decided to use a combination of a wireless intercom with active noise cancelling (ANC) earbuds to A) get the ability to hear the GPS on the phone and the music and B) get away from cords. These earbuds were well rated and far cheaper than the Bose ANC earbuds. This combination accomplishes what I need.This model of earbuds do NOT have a microphone. For those who want a microphone for phone please check out the model ATH-ANC33. The intercom I purchased does have a microphone, so the ATH-ANC23 fit my needs nicely. The earbuds run off of a AAA battery which is convenient. No charging. I was able to connect the earbuds to the intercom and tuck the wiring inside the helmet liner. The circuitry is contained in a box about the size of two AA batteries side-by-side which also holds the single AAA battery. A switch on one of the flat sides activates the ANC functionality and a small volume wheel on the side can control the volume. Both the ANC switch and the volume wheel (while small) were easy for me to adjust with standard gloves on. I did not try this with winter gloves. I was able to clip the box to the chin strap of my helmet through the fabric look that attaches the D-rings. There is bout 6" of cable between the plug and the battery box so you COULD attach this elsewhere. With intercom buttons on the helmet my ears being in the helmet, the best place for the ANC microphone to be (for me) is closer to my helmet, although I may experiment with this. The earbuds come with several different silicone ear plugs and one set of foam earplugs. The foam earplugs tend to stay in my ears when I pull the helmet down over my heard. The silicone earplugs often tend to pull out while doing this. There is a power switch to turn on Active Noise Cancelation. Otherwise, these work like regular earbuds when the switch is turned off. The Active Noise Cancellation is considerable. I’d estimate maybe 30%-40% of the background noise. As a test, put a battery in these, leave them unconnected to anything, put the earbuds in your ears and turn ANC on. Just the ambient noise in your house from the AC to the refrigerator will be greatly diminished as is with nothing else connected to the earbuds.At an intersection, with ANC on, you can hear the cars passing by at a lower volume. Engine noise is minimal (I do not ride a Harley with loud pipes). I can hear the engine, but in a muted manner. Turning on ANC actually sounds like the volume of the music increases a bit. In fact, doing this adds an inverse signal to the ambient noise thus cancelling some of it out to a degree. On road the wind noise is greatly reduced allowing me to play my music at a lower volume than without ANC. This, hopefully, will help avoid or lessen hearing damage. There are some occasions where the ANC seems to struggle a bit. I noticed a few occasions where I could hear a wind buffeting sound (chop) but with no physical pressure. Riders have likely experienced this before and understand this noise. This also sound a bit like the chop sound some cars may experience when only the rear windows are down but not as loud. Essentially, here, it sounded as though the ANC was being turned off then on again at about ½ second intervals. These conditions rarely lasted more than about 5 seconds or so and the volume was no louder than if I had ANC turned off. I noticed this more often when navigating through S turns where you are transitioning the bike (and yourself) from side to side. I suspect that having the control box clipped to one side of my chin strap created a change in wind across the device depending on whether the box was on the windward or leeward side of the turn compared to wind travel.To sum up, this is not a perfectly quiet setup, nor are these headphones, by any means but I am quite happy with the amount of noise reduction I experience and the ability to ride with a lower volume level. The controls are easy enough to use with standard gloves on. Fidelity and bass response are quite decent. The foam earplugs help keep the earbuds in my ears but are still comfortable. I enjoyed NOT paying $250 for Bose ANC earbuds!