Consider the type of aircraft your flying in, if its bloomin noisy you can have all the ANR you like but without decent passive attenuation it wont be worth much.
I've been using a Pilot 17-79 ANR set for about the last 7 or 8 years for general spam can types (cessna / piper et all) and they are very comfortable and the ANR works great. In my Tipsy Niper however they are flaming useless as the noise overcomes the ANR, I have a Microavionics set for that which has much better passive attenuation and is a great improvement.
Seem to remember my first set was from Harry Mendhelsons, think they were £99 or something (15 years ago now!) but they reminded me of a hammer house of horror film where this bloke put on a helmet thing which kept getting tighter and tighter until his head went pop, not cofortable for long periods at all!
Longest sector I've done with the 17-79's was about 4hrs and they were still comfortable at the end of the flight.