Meridian Unplugged - Powered by MrTechGuy.co.uk Forums Discussion HiFi & HT Chat Explorer 2 vs...

I have the sony noise cancelling headphones. I found the cancellation of background noise on plane flights to be effective. You can toggle on and off with a hard button. I think the sound quality is decent, though obviously there are better ones out there. The bluetooth connection works well and doesn’t seem to be a compromise over a wired connection. My main criticism is that the ear pads are a soft plastic of some sort. Perfectly comfortable, but tend to get a little sweaty. I do sweat easily, so may not be an issue for most folks. I haven’t taken the time to see if nicer replacement ear pads are available yet.

Thanks to all, very helpful replies.

I've narrowed it down to either the Sony WH-1000XM3, or Shure SE215 with Dragonfly Red/Cobalt (Richer Sounds do very good value bundle deals for those).

I did just think of a potential stumbling block with either, though, using Roon, in that I was intending to apply a little EQ, as I do with my HD650s in Roon to tame the worst of any frequency anomalies. All fine when I'm at home, but of course these will be work 'phones and I do work out and about with the laptop - which begs the question of how to use Roon in such a scenario.

I can store some files I want to play out and about locally on the Macbook, but is there a way to switch cores 'on the fly' as it were?

If not, I can happily use Tidal with locally stored files on the Macbook/iPhone, but is there a suitable EQ app for either in conjunction with Tidal...?

Sony's ordered, hopefully they'll be great!

Let us know how you get on

Sure thing 👍🏻

Supposedly arriving today, when ironically it’s raining and no construction going on. I’ll get my wife to bang and crash around a bit, shouldn’t be a problem right now after 14 weeks of lockdown 🤪

Lol

So, I got the Sony's and tried them a bit yesterday and for a longer work session today.

Hm.

I have three problems.

1. The sound isolation/cancelling is oddly frequency specific. I know the ANC only works for lower frequencies, and this appears to be really excellent. However, I was expecting, based on reviews and measurements for these that the passive mid-high frequency isolation would be considerably better than it is. What actually happens is that (e.g. on a windy day today with the doors open in the porch) the 'phones block the low frequencies with sea/wind, which is like a sort of brown/pink noise (and actually rather nice to work to) but leave prominent/random noise almost untouched (birdsong, speech, random hammering/cutting). This is a) the frequencies I find most irritating anyway and wished to block most, b) they actually stand out MORE due to the other frequencies being blocked so effectively! I tested this by lifting the 'phones off my ears when I heard a pigeon singing away in them, without the 'phones I could barely make out the bird as it was masked by the sea/wind noise. I wasn't expecting this. I can absolutely see why these would be miraculous on a plane/train, but not for what I need them to achieve.

2. Comfort. Seems OK initially, but after an hour or so, I start to get jaw and head ache from the earphones themselves and the headband. Also, mild 'aeroplane effect' with ANC on, which doesn't bother me as much as the headache (I don't get this with extended use of my Sennheiser HD650s).

3. Sound quality. To be honest, it's mediocre. It doesn't hurt my ears or do anything madly offensive, but bass is well over the top and overall it's a bit muddy. I can only think the rave reviews were listening to simple acoustic, or sparse rock, and not complex classical with big dynamic peaks and lots of instruments battling for space.

So, I'm on the verge of sending them back and trying some Shure in-ears. Allegedly, the isolation is more like a pair of foam earplugs, but I was more concerned about the sound quality being almost the opposite of these - a little bass light/bright/mid-centric - possibly over-revealing of mobile sources?

Any thoughts welcome!

I'd been considering those Sonys for quite a while, so your comments (calibrated to a known good Meridian 500/800 ear!) are very useful.

Thanks very much for the detailed write up, but sorry to hear that they haven't worked out for you.

Cheers

George

HTH, although sorry it's in a negative way!

Yeah, I'm underwhelmed, especially for the price, I must say.

I'm astounded by how bass boomy these things are - I'm used to bigger DSPs, which aren't exactly bass-shy as we are all aware, so for me to find them way OTT in that regard says something, and I love a bit of good, deep, punchy bass.

That plus the generally sub-par sound for the money and ANC which would probably be great for commuting/travel but not for my purposes, I think they'll be winging their way back pretty soon, especially since Richer Sounds have great offers on Shure in-ears PLUS Dragonfly's for the price of these...

This is similar to the experience I had on aircraft with noise cancelling earphones (although the Apple AirPod Pro’s are better at this).

My advice would be to buy the best Shure’s you can and have a mix of foam (Comply) and silicon inserts. The former can become uncomfortable over long periods, but provide great sound insulation, the latter are more comfortable, but the trade-off is increased noise.

I haven’t tried the AirPod Pro’s properly in a home setting (if I can, I will), but you could consider trialing these too. Apple have a straightforward refund policy, even on in-ear earphones. That said, a digger outside is potentially going to prove problematic, even for Apple.

I just tried out the Airpod Pro's at home and, while they successfully cut out the stupidly loud baby milk machine noise and me tapping on my desk, sadly I don't think they would do any more than cut the noise level on the noise you are dealing with.

I also tried my Roxanne's with the medium Comply tips (bear in mind, the large tips work more effectively in reducing ambient noise, but become uncomfortable more quickly), which actually let in more noise with the AirPods! I hate to say this, but you may find (as I did) that in such an environment, noise reduction may not work.

It might be worth trying the AirPods on the basis you can return them, or the earplugs I mentioned (they are pretty awesome at cutting noise!).

With more shops opening again including hi fi ones, is it worth going to one to try some out?

Before lockdown I went to our local High Wycombe John Lewis which had quite a few brands in stock, I’ve been toying with replacing my Bose Quite Comforts (the full over ear ones) which I’ve had for years and have been a great buy for my needs (comfort and noise cancelling).

In Jl I was quite surprised by how different the Sonys, Bose and B&Ws felt. Ones that had reviewed well did not feel comfortable for me. Apologies for the vagueness in terms of models but I am just trying to say that it might be worth trying before buying.