Accessories

Able Planet Clear Harmony delivers!
I have problems with my hearing, ringing, and unusual noise sensitivities, so I am very sensitive to the differences in the noise cancellation headsets. I have experience with most of them, bose, koss, sony, and have blown prodigious sums of money. I received my Clear Harmony, and they deliver!!! The noise cancellation is the strongest that I have experienced, also there is NO annoying low frequency accentuation. I find that many headsets, when set to noise cancellation alone, seem to leave me with upper frequencies cancelled much more than lower frequencies. This headset is superb. There is a tiny amount of hiss, but I believe that is a trade off. This is really a superb headset, and to me, is the favorite of all of them. Although I own the bose,koss, sony, audio technica, this is the one I actually use. AT, and Bose, are also quite good, but Clear Harmony has an edge, in my view.

A favorite singer sounds like a stranger through these headphones
Maybe it's the LINX technology, which is explained in detail on the product box. Or maybe it's my ears. But when I got these headphones and tried them out, I was disappointed. The active noise-canceling feature seemed to work very well, silencing the air conditioner and fans I had set going on "high" as a test. The sound from the TV that came through when the NC silenced the machinery, though, seemed high-pitched and tinny. I then hooked the headphones to my MP3 player and listened to different kinds of music. The instrumentals didn't sound very rich. And I was almost stunned when one of my favorite tracks by a favorite singer played - and her voice wasn't recognizable.

I did an in-home comparison this evening of the Clear Harmony headphones with the Audio-Technica ATH-ANC7 QuietPoint Active Noise-Cancelling Headphones - which don't have the LINX technology. I found the Audio-Technicas to be as good or better as to active noise-canceling, and significantly better as to audio fidelity with the MP3 player. All the different kinds of music sounded rich and clear, and when I played the same vocal track that the Clear Harmony had made sound so strange, it sounded right, including the voice.

I'm looking for a reasonably-priced set of active noise-canceling headphones primarily to use when traveling, and I don't want to have to tweak the EQ settings of my MP3 player, notebook PC, etc., to get good sound through the phones.

The Clear Harmony headphones are being returned; I don't think the LINX technology is right for me. I did like the extra padding on the top area of the headset which I think would help reduce discomfort especially when being worn for a long time.

I paid attention to the review of this product by a sound engineer, when I decided to try it. I wouldn't discourage anyone from trying these headphones, I'm just relating my experience with them which was disappointing.

Poor Fidelity and Noise Cancelling Feature
I purchased the Able Planet Clear Harmony Active Noise-Cancelling Headphones based on the reviews I read. I'm very disappointed in both the noise cancelling feature, that was poor at best, and the sound quality. The fidelity is very poor on the high end and doesn't even come close to my $99 Sennheiser HD 280 Pro's. As a matter of fact, my Sennheisers have less noise transmission with no noise cancelling circuit. These headphones were not for me and I have returned them.

excellent quality
This really beats the Bose headset. I have tried them both and this one has better noise reduction, and just as good bass and treble. The thing that makes this much better than Bose is try calling AblePlanet up- you get a LIVE person immediately and they listen immediately. They are genuinely interested in getting your feedback and ensuring you are satisfied. Smaller company, big customer support.

excellent, even surreal, once eq is adjusted
These are excellent headphones, with unbelievable bass(read-accurate).

As equalized they are not particularly accurate though-no doubt to the intention of having them used in noisy environments. Though lacking a documented frequency curve, I would guess it has a pronounced dip in the upper midrange to lower high frequency region, combined with a slightly heavy midbass band. No doubt many people will find this exciting, I am sure this was done again to compensate for an expected noisy external environment.

I am a sound engineer, and I have been looking for very high quality noise reduction headphones for mastering purposes. I suspected when I first auditioned these, that with a little tweaking, I could get them "perfect".

In mastering, one of the biggest problems is dealing with any extraneous noises that may "mask" details in the recording you are working on. traditional headphones simply cannot block all of this noise out. You would be amazed at the noise that creeps into your audtioning that you aren't aware of. The headphones do the finest job of removing this noise that I have ever heard. It is simply amazing. I never realized, even in a controlled listening room, just how much noise was present. In silence with the headphones powered off, then on, I realized I could hear my breathing! Yes, even the smallest amount of noise can effect the quality of music, and how wonderful to have almost everything eliminated.

As stated earlier I had to adjust my eq when using these for mastering, involving listening to hours of reference recordings to get it right, but I got there.

Now I have to say I almost listen exclusively to these headphones for all my audtioning. I have B&W speakers for my reference-anyone who knows anything about speakers, know these are the best, and I still prefer my headphones. NOW this is primarily because of the noise elimination, you simply will not believe the details in music that are buried beneath a noise floor that you don't even perceive.

I can even plainly hear differences between 16bit and 24bit when I am mastering! Its almost frightening.

One last thing. they are VERY comfortable. mastering can often take hours, and its wonderful to have a pair of cans that you can leave on without any ear pain.

Highly recommended. I will be happy to write another review with the supplied eq settings in the future if anyone is interested.