Quality headphones with passive noise cancellation?

Question

Headphones

I know that this topic has been raised several times already, but as far as I remember, they never came to specific models. It is desirable, if not to drown out completely, then at least partially muffle the voices of colleagues at some hours. Judging by the reviews and the principle of operation, headphones with active noise reduction are powerless here.
Well, and still, of course, it would be desirable to have a high-quality sound. Music school in childhood was not in vain. Perhaps some of the models from Sennheiser will fit here.

Answer 1

You should pay attention to such a thing - the human voice lies in a wide range of frequencies, and if you take full-size (monitor headphones) only with passive sound insulation (i.e., the headphone cups are made of a special material that partially dampens external noise), they will not completely dampen voices of people. Headphones with such sound insulation will dampen mainly medium and high frequencies, but the human voice, especially the male one, also has a low-frequency component. So active noise canceling is struggling with this particular component of the voice or just noise. But at the same time, I can’t advise you worthy monitors that would have good sound and that would dampen both bass and midrange + high frequencies well - I just haven’t seen such monitors yet. The idea with active noise reduction is good, but it has not yet been implemented at a good level.
If we talk about overhead headphones, then with noise isolation they are better off. For example, as the owner of the AT ATH-ES 7, I can say that their soundproofing is enough to drown out most of the noise around. However, you can’t sit in such headphones all day - your ears will hurt, but I calmly sit in them for 2-3 hours. As for the sound quality of these headphones, it is very good for its price (4K). In general, a lot of good things have been written about these headphones on the Internet - you can read and see for yourself what I wrote above. Or listen to them in the store - it's easier to make sure.
But if you are okay with earplugs, then this option may be the best. The idea is as follows - choose the earplugs that you like the most in terms of the nature of the sound, and then customizations are made for your headphones (special silicone tips that are made to order according to ear canal impressions). As a result, you will get excellent sound insulation, which so far cannot be obtained in other ways.
And it would be easier to advise something if you indicated not only the budget, but also the intended sound source, as well as musical preferences - after all, these are important points when choosing headphones, especially when it comes to expensive (relatively) models.

Answer 2

I think it's worth taking a closer look at the Pioneer HDJ-1000 , Pioneer HDJ-500 and Sony XB700 (Sony has very soft ear cushions and good sound isolation, a lot of enhancers and a very powerful bass, you have to remove it if you don't like it). There is also a junior model XB500. As for Pioneer, they can disappoint the layman with sound, because they present the sound “as it is”, without improving it.

Answer 3

www.etymotic.com/
As far as I know (and in practice) here are the best.

Answer 4

Once again I’ll send the Beyerdynamic DT880 aside, I’m not the owner, but they were tested in the store for quite a long time (a friend wanted good headphones and we tried everything and everything for 3 hours (several synchizers, AT, sony, coss, something else (there are a lot of there were models)) in the range from 30 to 300). In general, in terms of noise isolation + quality, it was very, very far in a good direction from the closest competitors (I would buy it for myself, but I don’t need it at all, although the question of choosing headphones has now been resolved :)). I was very, very impressed, as were 2 other people in the store. I advise you to try to listen somewhere, or just put it on and listen to the noise around :).

Answer 5

I have a Pioneer HDJ-1000. Excellent insulation. Good sound. And they are pretty inexpensive.