I have been using the Logitech SilentSound Noise Canceling Headphones religiously for the past week. First I will discuss the SilentSound technology and my experience with it. I want to stress that my ears are extremely sensitive to changes in pressure. The one time I have flown, my ears popped so bad I was nearly in tears. I even experienced major ear popping during a road trip to Las Vegas a few months ago.
That being said, when I first put on the headphones and turned on the noise canceling feature, I immediately noticed a moderate change in pressure against my ear drums. I tried removing the headphones and then reseating them, thinking there might be some type of suction creating the pressure, but that didn't help. I then turned noise canceling off and everything returned back to "normal". I tried this several more times with the same results. I then decided to do some research on noise canceling technologies and learned that a select few people do report mild pressure in the ears when using such devices.
So, I continued on with my testing, first using the headphones just to cancel out noise (not plugged into an audio source). I put the headphones on and made a note of what background noises I could hear without noise canceling. Then, I turned on noise canceling and the difference was like night and day. Without noise canceling, I could hear the fans in my computer whirling along and could hear noise from my keyboard as I typed. Once I flipped the switch and enabled noise canceling, the fan noise completely went away and I could barely hear the keyboard. Noise canceling worked very well and it actually felt a bit creepy to be sitting in almost dead silence.
I was not able to withstand using noise canceling for very long, however. As mentioned above, my ears are super sensitive and the pressure became bothersome very quickly. Also, I noticed that I seemed to feel nauseated the more I used the headphones without music. Turning noise canceling off or simply removing the headphones alleviated both of these issues.
Next up I tested using the headphones for music. I first tested without noise canceling then with. I have a Creative X-Fi sound card in my work system that I used for testing. I used Winamp as my media player and listened to several songs. I wasn't really impressed and found that I had to turn the volume up pretty loud on my audio control panel. The music all sounded very muffled, so I started playing around a bit with the equalizer in Winamp. I was able to completely fix the muffled sound with just a few tweaks. Now music sounded great, but the true test would come with noise canceling.
I enabled noise canceling and suddenly the music seem to really come to life and it was also much louder, which means I didn't need to turn the volume up near as high to get the same noise output. I used the headphones in noise canceling mode for a few hours and everything sounded great. And best of all, I felt no pressure in my ears and didn't experience the same sick feeling as before. Thinking this might be a fluke, I stopped the music and the pressure instantly came back. Very odd.
As for overall sound quality, once I adjusted the output via the equalizer in Winamp, everything sounded fantastic. Bass in rap songs was very deep and full. I could turn the volume up very high and not have any distortion - the bass still hit hard while the mids and highs came through perfectly. Rock music also sounded great. All of the instruments were clear and distinct and again, things remained very smooth at loud volumes. I tested the headphones while watching a DVD and also television using my TV tuner card; no problems here either. Games sounded great too, something I know many of you will appreciate.
The level of comfort on these headphones is second to none. They feel great when in use and I have found myself sometimes forgetting that I even have them on. Even after several hours of continuous usage, my ears and head felt perfectly fine. The SilentSound headphones fit perfectly on my head thanks to the adjustable headband and swiveling ear muffs. The ability to fold the headphones and transport them in the included carrying case is very nice. For those of you that travel often, the included airplane audio adapter will come in handy. Logitech claims that a single AAA battery can provide up to 40 hours of noise cancellation. I have used these headphones every day for the past week, about 3-4 hours per day and the supplied battery is still running strong. My only complaint with these headphones is the relatively short cable provided. Logitech claims the cable is 6 feet in length but mine measured only 5 feet, 2 inches. A few extra feet would be great for users who have their computer sitting on the ground and do not have a front audio jack. I feel the ear pressure issue is a somewhat isolated event. If you are able to fly and not break down into tears from the changing cabin pressure then you should have no problem with these noise canceling headphones. Overall sound quality is great (once tweaked via software equalizer) and the comfort level is unmatched. As of writing, the Logitech SilentSound Noise Canceling Headphones sell for around $130.00.
