Sennheiser PXC 250 II Collapsible Noise-Canceling Headphones

Great for travel
This is my second pair of these lightweight noise-canceling headphones, which should tell you how much I liked the first set. I use them for travel, especially long plane rides to and from Europe.

PROS: (1) Light weight and portability. When I travel, minimizing weight and space is very important, and these featherweight headphones are perfect for those of us who find ear buds annoying. I wore them for 9 straight hours on a flight back from France and they never hurt my ears or felt heavy. By contrast, when I've worn the Bose on transatlantic flights (American Airlines loans you a set if you fly business class), I can't go more than about 3 hours before they start to feel uncomfortable. (2) Low price -- less than half the cost of the price-controlled Bose. (3) They work just fine (only without the noise canceling) if the battery dies. (4) The new ones have a small volume control on the battery compartment which I found very helpful on a long flight...

Best bang for the buck

At half the price of the Bose on ear headphones there is no good reason that I can imagine for buying anything but the Sennheisers. Aside from being much more friendly to the wallet, here's why you should get these:

- Sound reproduction is excellent
- They continue playback after the battery dies, unlike the Bose headphones
- Lightweight and compact
- Noise cancelling is excellent

This is my second set of Sennheisers. I bought the PXC 250 set in 2007 and have now upgraded to the PXC 250-II after managing to leave the first set somewhere in an airport. I travel about 100,000 miles a year and these have been a godsend both for listening to music and surviving my plane flights without headache and stress.

Excellent headphones for a good price

This is my third Sennheiser headphone set (lost one). The first two were the 250 model which requires two batteries rather than the one required by the 250 II model. I cannot tell any difference in the noise cancelling feature between the two models. They both do a good job, although not quite as good as the more expensive, well-known brands. But they do well and they are better on the other features -- compactness, particularly. The 250 II has a volume control feature on the smaller battery compartment, which is handy. Either model works in a quiet environment without the noise cancellation turned on, a big plus compared to those other brands that don't. The combination of price, design and effectiveness in cancelling noise will keep me from ever spending twice the amount on other sets that may be slightly better on noise cancellation, but not as good on all other features. By the way, I use the headphones mostly for airline travel, of which I do a lot.

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