Noise Murderer On The Loose

There is noise-music. Some say we shouldn't call it music (and are often right) while some will say it should be regarded as a modern acoustic art, at least. I will not judge upon this matter since the purpose of this article is not to appreciate how artsy or wacky can electro-noise be. From all this I am interested in noise only; and not making it but eliminating it.

In the last period of time I have seen headphone manufacturers coming closer and closer to another type of gear, the noise cancelling system-loaded headgear. Most of the world's leading names in the audio industry and especially in this field have started making hi-end noise canceling headphones and it looks like they're a hit as people learn the beauty of musical sound without exterior noise interventions.

Since Sennheiser has been one of the planet's greatest names in audio hardware and as far as headphones are concerned it is a reference brand, it was logic that the German company opened 2007 with a new model of noise canceling headphones, as expected, top-shelf.

The new piece, PXC 450 NoiseGard 2.0 has been described by Sennheiser as being a “portable cloak of silence”; and it is possible that the gear is well worth the name, should the new model stick to the declared specs and being capable of filtering 90% of the exterior noise which may disturb a perfect listening séance.

It has become a standard now that these “active” headphones work in “passive” mode when the AAA battery which powers their noise-gate electronics; this means that you are not definitely tied to the noise-guard or to the life of the batteries. All the electronics and the battery compartment are inside the actual volume of the headphones so nothing dangling out! Handy, isn't it?

And finally, as I mentioned “volume”: the headphones sport a very cool-design vol -/+ panel altogether with a talk-thru button as well. You no longer need to take off your headphones when you want to hear a conversation: just press the talk button and things become audible.

The top-end electronics and drivers inside the Sennheiser PXC 450 are taken from the company's hi-end gear so no need to fear about quality: if you've owned serious gear from Sennheiser then you know they're never kidding about quality.

Ah, and one last thing: ON/OFF has been made with a very nice fade-effect! About $589 and they can be yours, starting with April!

Photo by Sennheiser.