Noticing I get more work done with headphones on and music drowning out the rest of the world, I picked up a pair of Shure E2c-n Sound Isolating Earphones – thinking I wouldn’t need the music up so loud.
I don’t know how I could have handled airplane travel without them. The rest of the world is muffled away. Even with nothing playing, they turn the world down a couple notches. All the ambient noise of the cabin – fans, air, all of it gone. The screaming baby directly behind me? I barely know it’s there.
Ahhhh. Quiet.
They came with a number of different inserts, I found the orange foam ones most comfortable. Though, I still haven’t found the perfect position for them. With the iPod ear buds, I could just set them in and go. The Shure’s need a little wiggling before they’re comfortable and then, a little more wiggling after a while.
Welcome to the club. In-ear-canal headphones are by far the best way to block out the world and really enjoy the tunes. The noise cancelling ones seem to take a far too active approach to cut out the background noise (generating more noise to cancel out) that makes me uncomfortable.
The E2’s and the Etymotic ones I have use what we’ve been doing to cut down on the dangerous noise in factories, runways, etc.