NEWS: Sennheiser's smarter silencers bring flight-deck technology to seat 32F

Sennheiser is adding to its popular range of noise-cancelling headphones with the arrival of the rather upmarket PXC 450, which uses technology originally designed for commercial airline pilots. Both BA and Lufthansa use flight-deck headphones with the company's NoiseGard 2.0 technology, which claims to remove 90% of all bass rumble and noise, such as that from engines, tyres etc. The new £300 headphones also feature Active TalkThrough, which allows the user to have a conversation without removing the headphones at the push of a button, while still maintaining noise reduction. That'll be handy for those 'could I have another glass of water?' moments, then. In addition, the over-ear design with soft earpads keeps out more extraneous noise, there's a built-in electronic volume control and the headphones are designed for 20 hours' operation from a single AAA-type alkaline battery. However, they'll still work as conventional headphones if the battery is drained, which should cover the last few hours of that London-Sydney flight. You can also remove the cable and simply use the NoiseGard 2.0 system while you sleep, and the headphones fold up for easy packing.

Andrew has written about audio and video products for the past 20+ years, and been a consumer journalist for more than 30 years, starting his career on camera magazines. Andrew has contributed to titles including What Hi-Fi?, GramophoneJazzwise and Hi-Fi CriticHi-Fi News & Record Review and Hi-Fi Choice. I’ve also written for a number of non-specialist and overseas magazines.