Noise cancelling headphones - again

[justapax]

Originally Posted by Bug

Google:
BOSE Airline adapter for QC3 QC25 QC35 Quiet Comfort - Brand New Genuine Bose

or

Airplane Adapter for Headphone, 3.5mm Airline Flight Converter for Bose QuietComfort 15 25 35 3 2 QC15 QC25 QC35 QC3 QC2 SoundLink AE2 Headphones

Thank you. I assume this will work with a B&W 3.5 mm jack?

Just curious - what are the other two pins for? Do they charge the phones? The B&Ws seem to last forever, I charged them when I bought them, and I haven't charged them since.

[artee]

Originally Posted by justapax

Thank you. I assume this will work with a B&W 3.5 mm jack?

Just curious - what are the other two pins for? Do they charge the phones? The B&Ws seem to last forever, I charged them when I bought them, and I haven't charged them since.

It doesn't need to be a Bose adapter. Other makes are available, Sennheiser etc. It's just a simple 3.5 to 2x3.5 adapter, for the aircraft that have the 2 prong socket. I think they were implemented to stop people taking the supplied headphones away with them.

And yes, it'll absolutely work with your B&Ws.

[Uplinker]

Originally Posted by justapax

............you only have two ears, so why do you need 5.1 speakers? For me, I want real audio quality............

5.1 was developed for cinema type viewing, where surround sound speakers can give a more "immersive" 3D experience and film sound engineers and sound mixers can produce a wide aural sound stage and effects. And also because viewers could not all sit in the best position to hear everything properly from just two loudspeakers.

They added a centre speaker to give clear vocal dialogue, and they added a sub-woofer to a) to add quality by producing the very deep low frequency sounds to add to the cinema experience, and b) to fill in the lower registers missing from the generally much smaller "satellite" surround speakers in people's living rooms.

You can get most of that from a high quality pair of loudspeakers and amplifier(s) or high quality headphones and a binaural,recording, but that's not practical or affordable for a family watching a film on the sofa in their living room.

[justapax]

Originally Posted by Uplinker

You can get most of that from a high quality pair of loudspeakers and amplifier(s) or high quality headphones and a binaural,recording, but that's not practical or affordable for a family watching a film on the sofa in their living room.

Thanks for that info. I have 5.1 speakers (Mission 700Ss front, Mission 707s back, Kef cresta centre and Tannoy sub-woofer) fed by a Cambridge Audio Azur 540R 5.1 dts/Dolby amplifier, 200W per channel, accompanied by a projector and a 4m x 3m screen. I also own a popcorn maker, to complete the experience. My living room is basically a home theatre. If I want to play something REALLY LOUD, I use headphones so as not to annoy the neighbours, fed by the widget that takes in S/PDIF and spits out binaural audio.. So the B&W phones get used almost daily, not just on planes. However, unlike you, I'm not wearing them continuously for long-haul flights, so the fact that they are quite heavy is less of a concern than it would be if I were wearing them for long periods.

[Mr Mac]

Justapax
Hi Fi was one of my vices and I was for ever chasing that Triangle at the back of the performance so to speak.

Currently have B&W 702 S3 / Meridian 818 and 500 transport and DAC and Michell GyroDec with SME arm and Ortofon Cartridge.

However having said all that I have BOSE system both in Munich and Yorkshire with B&W Zepplin in my wife’s study in Yorkshire, and it is the Bose that by far and away gets the most use.

Cheers
Mr Mac

[justapax]

Originally Posted by Mr Mac

Justapax
Hi Fi was one of my vices and I was for ever chasing that Triangle at the back of the performance so to speak.

Currently have B&W 702 S3 / Meridian 818 and 500 transport and DAC and Michell GyroDec with SME arm and Ortofon Cartridge.

However having said all that I have BOSE system both in Munich and Yorkshire with B&W Zepplin in my wife’s study in Yorkshire, and it is the Bose that by far and away gets the most use.

Cheers
Mr Mac

The analogue part of my system is pretty ancient - Thorens TD 166 Mk II with an Audio Technica AT31E moving-coil cartridge feeding a NAD MC phono stage. I buy the record deck a new rubber band about every ten years, and I think the cartridge is coming to the end of its life, but new MC cartridges are as rare as hen's teeth, and priced accordingly. The CD player is just a CD player/recorder, as it gives a digital output to the Cambridge Audio amplifier/receiver the DAC is handled by the amp, the CD player is just a transport. I also have a cassette recorder for when I want to listen to some tape hiss. I rarely listen to anything newer than the end of the 80s. DVDs are handled by an ancient Windows 98SE computer. I have 3 TB of DVDs on a hard disk. So when I'm on a plane, it's difficult to find anything on the IFE that I haven't watched already.

Some of the kit is 40 years old, plus, but I don't think record players have advanced in technology over that period, so the Thorens is good enough for me.

[Mr Mac]

Justapax 1
The GyroDec replaced a Thorens 160s which I received as a 21st Birthday present. I also still have a Nackamichi tape deck though it must be decades since I used.

The GyroDec was bought by Mrs Mac as she thought it just looked wonderful as an art object as well as audio equipment.

I have quite a collection of vinyl and I made sure when purchasing a new album I bought a plastic sleeve so they are in good condition and obviously still get played. I never bought many singles but there are a few still with me.

Cheers
Mr Mac

[artee]

Originally Posted by Mr Mac

Justapax 1
The GyroDec replaced a Thorens 160s which I received as a 21st Birthday present. I also still have a Nackamichi tape deck though it must be decades since I used.

The GyroDec was bought by Mrs Mac as she thought it just looked wonderful as an art object as well as audio equipment.

I have quite a collection of vinyl and I made sure when purchasing a new album I bought a plastic sleeve so they are in good condition and obviously still get played. I never bought many singles but there are a few still with me.

Cheers
Mr Mac

I swapped from vinyl to CD decades back, and then ripped all my CD to FLAC subsequently, so all my music is played from a NAS (Network Attached Storage), through a DAC/Network Music Player through a Musical Fidelity amp and B&W speakers.

Michell do make lovely turntables though. As do SME. I used to drive past SME (in Steyning), and B&W (in Worthing).

I did have a lovely example of customer service from Musical Fidelity. I had one of their CD players, tuner, and amp. Each came with a remote control. They did make a combined remote, which the local distributor (Len Wallis Audio) did not stock, so I wrote a polite complaint to Musical Fidelity HO in Wembley, I think it was. They wrote back with a lovely letter, apologising, and saying that their international guy was about to head off to Oz, and they'd make sure that he took one with him. Sure enough, a few week later, there was a knock on my door, and there was the guy with the remote, on the house, hand-delivered.

[justapax]

Mission are good too. I blew the tweeter on one of my 707s (entirely my fault) and they sent me a replacement tweeter free of charge. Out of warranty.

[Kraftstoffvondesibel]

i see the discussion has turned to speakers.
I have enjoyed my ATC 100s for home listening for a long time. I get to enjoy a lot of really nice speakers while working as well.

But for general headphone recommendations: while I know Bose has a foothold in the cockpit for reasons uknown, maybe because they where early out with decent active noise cancellation, in the audio world however, we are looking quite differently at it. I have never met an audio engineer or musician wearing Bose Headphones. To be honest, the audio quality is quite appalling.

i would recommend Sony, Sennheiser, B&W for mid price audio quality.

[justapax]

Originally Posted by Kraftstoffvondesibel

i see the discussion has turned to speakers.
I have enjoyed my ATC 100s for home listening for a long time. I get to enjoy a lot of really nice speakers while working as well.

But for general headphone recommendations: while I know Bose has a foothold in the cockpit for reasons uknown, maybe because they where early out with decent active noise cancellation, in the audio world however, we are looking quite differently at it. I have never met an audio engineer or musician wearing Bose Headphones. To be honest, the audio quality is quite appalling.

i would recommend Sony, Sennheiser, B&W for mid price audio quality.

I think pilots have a different set of requirements, Air communication is in AM (Amplitude Modulation, which us radio amateurs call Antique Mode) and has a restricted bandwidth of 50-3300 Hz, so audio quality is less of a priority, They have to wear headphones for very extended periods, they can't just slip them off if they're getting uncomfortable, so comfort and weight are more important than a good flat frequency response and no distortion. 10% distortion is considered acceptable for radio communications, as against 0.1% or better for listening to music. I've always gone for Sennheisers in the past (wired, not Bluetooth, not noise-cancelling) but I went for B&W this time thanks to recommendations in this sub-forum. I've been very pleased with them, once I was guided to where I could download the manual (which isn't included) but they are a bit heavy because of the long-life batteries, and I imagine that if you had to wear them continuously for a 14-hour flight they could get a bit uncomfy.