6 out of 6 people found this review helpful.
I Can't Hear You
Date of Review: Jul 16, 2001
The Bottom Line: If you modify them right, they can make everything dead silent around you- great for travel. The price is right, although the sound could be better.
These are my favorite noise-blocking headphones, you can't beat these for the price if you need noise blocking and portability.
Let me just say, as some of the negative reviews have noted, out of the box the sound quality kind of sucks and it doesn't fit too well. However, if you surf on over to http://www.headwize.com/projects/cmoy4_prj.htm you can see the suggested "no duh" mod of putting real earplugs on the Plugs. The change is simply amazing - they block out pretty much everything, even when the music's off. This, combined with their small size, makes them the perfect plane/bus/train 'phones.
The not-so-good: the sound quality is not-so-good. Oh well, can't expect much for the price. Personally, for informal, non-noise blocking listening I prefer the $80 Sennheiser HD-495s - they sound gorgeous and are much more comfortable to wear, but are big, bulky and don't block noise. But if you're using them in noisy environment, outside noise kind of precludes any attempt at an even frequency response anyways so it's not really an issue. In fact, for noisy environment their sound-blocking properties make them sound better than anything else, since they keep outside noise out (when properly modified with real earplugs.)
All in all, give them a try and use the mod from Headwize( http://www.headwize.com/projects/cmoy4_prj.htm ) - they also suggest a more advanced damping mod to improve sound quality, but your average listener will be happy with the earplug mod. Do it and you'll be off in your own acoustically isolated world in no time flat.
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