Most isolating on ear headphone.

I want to block out the sound of my lawnmower so i can listen to music while mowing.

What headphone does, in your experience block most ampient noise out?

 

Sennheiser's HD-25.
But then I've never used or heard noise-cancelling headphones.

 

Kim, you didn't ask this, but: Better to use earplugs (instead of music) while mowing, and save your hearing. If you use any kind of earphones or headphones, the temptation will be to turn up the music to override the mowing sound that comes through. If you Google, you'll find a few scholarly articles showing that hearing damage from sound is more likely while exercising. So, I suggest you forego music while mowing.

 

Active noise cancelling headphones
InnerFidelity's "Wall of Fame" Noise Canceling

Be very careful and conscious of the volume you play the music at when listening in loud environments. It is very easy to play headphones at volume levels that will damage your hearing when trying to drown out outside noise (like on a bus, train, subway, or while mowing).

 

You may get better isolation and noise cancelling with over ear cans or properly custom fitted in ear monitors than over ears. My trusty Bose QC15s are nowhere near as good as my Oppo PM3s as far as SQ goes, but the noise cancelling is terrific. I use either Bose or Sony over ear active noise cancelling cans to drown out the crap background music at the gym or when on long train or plane journeys. I am always struck when I take them off at how loud the outside world is, which hopefully means I don't have the music too loud.

 

What i've done untill now is use my costum molded Ultimate Ears in ear monitors (i am a musician and in-ear monitoring is a requirement). But the attenuation of outside noise is not big enough. So i've had a set of on ear cans above them. The sort handy workers use in loud construction zones. Works great but not comfortable. So i just wondered if i could skip using the inears. But alas, i fear the on ear headphones wont really be enough.

 

You could always keep your current ear phones and get a reel lawn mower. Less noise that way !

 

I use my beats until it gets too hot out, then I use my Apple earbuds. It's "good enough" for me.

I guess only noise-cancelling headphones will totally block out all the noise.

 

But doesn't the noisecanceling algorithm impair the music?

 

Nope. I definitely need my music while mowing

 

The war against grass will be lost without music.

 

I've been thinking about trying these once the lawn-mowing season starts up again:

Decibullz Custom Molded Audio and Hearing Protection

I've tried a few replacement tips. None of them completely seal out the noise, but some memory foam type tips seem to do OK.

 

Yes. Noise cancelling headphones do lessen the sound quality. Noise cancelling headphones are like listening to all of your music run through excessive no-noise processing to remove tape hiss. Except that the noise cancelling affects all frequencies while the no-noise just affects the treble and "air". With noise cancelling you lose pretty much all of the micro-detail that is in the recording at all frequencies, you lose space and imaging and the soundstage will shrink in both width and depth and lose proper center imaging.

I do not personally find noise cancelling headphones to be of a benefit except for extremely noisy environments like subways, trains, buses, and two cycle lawn mowers. When I'm flying and want to listen to music I would rather listen to good standard closed headphones than listen to noise cancelling headphones. The din and background noise on a plane is a type of noise that I can listen through and still hear what I want to hear in the music and the gear I'm listening to and be able to hear more of the music and sound quality than I would get if I used noise cancelling headphones. Similar to how you can listen through tape hiss and hear more detail and better sound quality than the same music that has been no-noised to remove tape hiss. The no-noise process does more damage to the sound quality that cannot be recovered. It's better to listen to the recording with the tape hiss.

For listening while mowing the lawn a noise cancelling headphone would would be better listening. But for other less noisy environments I consider noise cancelling to be more harm than good for overall sound quality.

 

Or get an electric mower.

 

Yes, definitely, but not as much as the mower, and using noise cancelling and dropping the volume allows you to listen to the music at safe levels. I already have a degree of sensorineural hearing loss so am pretty careful about headphone volume and avoiding very loud ambient noise where possible.

 

I use a pair of IEMs worn under a pair of 3M Peltor earmuffs.

 

You'll get some good suggestion, but honestly *nothing* will come close to blocking as much noise as using actual ear protection muffs. That's what I do and I plug my headphones in before wearing the muffs, on top.



These guys are from Peltor and offer the best/cheapest amount of noise elimination possible.

I personally use Koss PortaPro (that I remove from the headband) but you can easily use earphones with this setup and you'll enjoy the end result *far* more than using headphones outright.

This page, for instance, shows you how to do modifications by permanently affixing the headphones inside but I much prefer my way of doing it which doesn't involve any tinkering whatsoever.

Jackhammer Headphones

 

That's exactly what i've been doing. In ear beneath hearing protection muffs. It can just get uncomfortable when i am wearing it for more than 30 minutes.

 

I don't use in-ear. I use Koss PortaPros. Maybe that's gentler as I don't like in-ear to begin with so I've never tried.

I'd suggest giving that a try before forking over a lot of dough on expensive suggestions which IMHO won't block as much noise.