The following is a portion of a recent article from the Australian Financial Review on IQbuds2 MAX, published on January 16th, 2020. Click here to read the full article
How do you achieve noise-cancelling perfection without gaffer tape?
Here are the best two ways we know of to get near-perfect noise cancellation on a plane, a train, under a noisy air-conditioner or huddled next to a noisy heater:
1) Get yourself a pair of top-quality noise-cancelling headphones, such as the Sony WH-1000XM3 (our favourite over-the-ear headphones of all time) or the Bose QuietComfort 35 Mark II headphones (also brilliant), and put them into noise-cancelling mode.
These superb headphones, like all headphones, will leak a little noise through the gap where the soft cushion doesn’t seal perfectly against your head, so to get near-perfect noise cancellation, you’ll need to take both hands and press them up against both headphones.
Squeeze hard and voila! Noise-cancelling perfection.
The charge case gets you four more charges.
Now, on long trips or, say, when you’re driving, this solution could be a little inconvenient, due to having no hands left to hold a scotch glass/steering wheel. In these circumstances we recommend wrapping gaffer tape around your head to hold the headphones firmly in place. Or, if you’re worried about your hairdo, using a bright, elastic headband à la John McEnroe circa 1977.
Do this, and you’ll be in noise-cancelled bliss.
But if that sounds a little over the top, you could always:
2) Get yourself a pair of Nuheara’s latest Bluetooth earbuds, the IQbuds² MAX, put them in your ears and turn on their “World Off” Mode.
We’ve done a fair bit of testing of the noise-cancelling feature in the IQbuds² MAX, added in an update to the IQbuds we first reviewed a couple of years ago.
We’ve tested it on a 14-hour flight from Los Angeles to Sydney, next to a noisy fan, under an air-conditioner, in a noisy workplace and in a very noisy bar. And without hesitation, we can say the noise-cancelling betters any earbuds or headphones we’ve ever reviewed.
Once you fit them properly in your ears, they are exactly as good as a pair of Sony WH-1000XM3 or Bose QuietComfort 35 Mark II headphones squeezed tight against your head.
Which is to say that, under normal usage of those Sony or Bose headphones, without the gaffer tape or the headband, the IQbuds² MAX earbuds are better. They’re astonishingly good.
…(Visit AFR.com to read the rest of this article)
