Noise cancelling headphones

Steve <rg.TakeThisOut@bcm.inv> writes:
 >Has anyone actually done an A/B comparison of Bose vs other noise
 >cancelling headphones, to see if Bose is actually worth the money?
 >Thanks!

I have tried 3 brands, but not side by side, so I'm hesitant to
claim one is really better than another. I've tried the Bose
consumer grade, the Sharper Image and one of the earliest consumer
grade by another company almost ten years ago, but they are buried
here somewhere, I can't find them to tell you the name and they
went out of business I believe.

For background hiss rumble and roar, of office fans, machines, car
road noise, roar inside city busses, etc, the seemed about equal,
they cut the roar, quite a bit.

But the unfortunate side effect, either intentional or unavoidable,
is that this brings the conversations going on around you, that
were being masked by the roar, out in loud stark clarity.

I've searched for any brand that cuts ALL the noise but the salespeople
don't seem to understand, I've had even Bose store clerks tell me
things like "we couldn't do that, it wouldn't be safe, you couldn't
hear the pilot in the plane" or "no hiss and roar, see that is sound
that is the same all the time and you can cancel that." I really
don't think they know anything about this more than how to sell it
at the cash register.

There is a second "feature" of your hearing, your ears have an
incredible "dynamic range." This means that even if something is
suddenly 10 or even 100 times quieter that your ears "realize this"
and "turn up the gain" so you can still hear it. To compare, imagine
we cut your income by 99% and you were able to think "wow, a little
less money, but I can still pretty much keep doing what I was doing."
But we turn down the sound by 99% and you can still do just fine.
So, cancelling the background doesn't "completely turn it off."

And, one final disclaimer, I'm probably as close to "atonal" as
anyone, I've never used these to listen to music or anything else,
I've been trying to find silence, not more noise, so I'm completely
unqualified to say anything about their music quality.

Other sources, Wallmart has a brand, Fry's has a brand, Those have
been as much as 10x cheaper than the consumer grade Bose, I think
Fry's had one on sale for $15 or $20 recently. Bose has a dauntingly
expensive pilot version that I've considered, Andrea has a variety
of these.

If anyone ever finds a brand that cuts ALL noise way way down please
let me know somehow.

Thank you<!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->