ANR headsets may be great for commercial and/or IFR flying; but for student and low-hour private pilots I reckon these are better value.
Being a low-hour PPL I would respectfully disagree. While cheap headsets certainly "do the job", my experience going from non-ANR Peltors to Zulus (which I bought used for about 50% of retail price) was that they helped me relax more, removing pretty much all the annoying noises from the cockpit. Both as a student and a beginner PPL I find that anything which reduces my percieved workload while flying is a blessing, no matter how small
Now, if you're only flying occasionally then the cost of a Bose-X or Zulu may seem disproportionately large. The solution for that is to do what I did, buy a used pair. It didn't really take me long to find Zulus for sale and they are really durable - any excessive wear or damage should be serious enough as to be obvious at first glance.