The Turtle Beach Noise Canceling Headphones had a pretty steep hill to climb with me right from the start, because I have a middle outer ear that is apparently atypically small, meaning there is nary a set of buds that will stay in my head for more than a few seconds at a time. These headphones were no exception, worming their way out of my ears (especially the left) every few seconds, as if the noise was coming out of the speakers like a jet flume. They were comfortable—the foam wrappers seem especially thick—but oversized and awkward.
And I haven’t even gotten to how they sound.
Sound quality wavered between ‘acceptable’ and ‘pleasant,’ depending on the music or audio source used—even while using the Turtle’s on the same hardware. I had hoped that the powered noise-canceling hardware would also serve as a low-rent amplifier, too, but the volume and sound quality difference when the hardware was on didn’t seem to be noticeable.
And that was sort of a problem, especially considering that the noise canceling hardware is the defining quality of the $50 headphones, so you’d think if things didn’t sound louder they’d at least sound better without the background clatter. Walking down the streets of Brooklyn, though, I couldn’t tell much difference between the on and off settings, as the sounds of cars and screams of murdered ghosts still came through just fine. It’s probably due more to the fact the headphones didn’t make a good seal in my ears—no amount of noise canceling is going to fix that.
The in-line box is annoying, too, as it’s way too large to really want to have to clip to your clothes, and even if you did, the clip is sort of chintzy. Putting that part of the cord in your pocket is a decent solution, but then it’s really easy to forget to turn the headphones off when you remove them—a good way to run the AAA battery down.
I bought a couple of pairs of Sony in-canal headphones when I moved to New York, mainly because the noise of the trains made listening to music a dopplered and punctuated affair. Since they’re basically ear plugs with speakers inside, they managed to muffle the majority of excess noise while still providing decent sound (especially when amped). Let’s just say I’ll be sticking with that solution for now. If you spent a lot of times listening to music perfectly still, like while riding on an airplane for instance, they might be a better option.
For these to effectively block noise for me, though, I just had to turn them up really loudly. Loudly enough, in fact, so that others near me could hear what I was listening to, which sort of defeats the point of headphones.
It’s too bad; I had high hopes. I love the Sony’s I use, but they’re sort of waxy gross.
Product Page [TurtleBeach]
