Pros: The music sounds wonderful again; our hearing is protected from long hours of loud noises.
Cons: The QC3's case takes up some space in your bag while it lightens your wallet.
The bottom line: Regain some peace and quiet and keep what is left of your hearing while enjoying your favorite tunes and beating the noise pollution around us.
For several years my husband and I have been bothered by excessive road and airplane noise while traveling, and we finally decided to bite the bullet and try the new Bose Quiet Comfort 3 noise cancelling headphones with their 30 day moneyback guarantee.
I don't think that we'll be returning these headphones before we die! We just drove 14 hours down the East Coast on I-95 in a new rental Chrysler van, and the road noise was overwhelming. To hear the car radio or iPod, we had to crank the music so loud it hurt our ears. So we took turns listening to the iPod using the QC3's, and it was wonderful being able to hear the low volume parts of the many instrumental songs we enjoy.
The QC 3's are quite similar to the QC 2's, so the reviews of the 2's apply to the 3's as well. The major change is that the 3's have a smaller cup that rests on the ear rather than fitting over it like the 2's, and the 3's cost around $350.00 ...about 50.00 more than the 2's.
Bose just began offering a free Lexar MP-3 player with both sets of headphones last weekend after buyers told them that last year's promotional CD player was out of date. The Lexar will hold a 1 Gig SD card in addition to the 256K and about 30 songs built in.
I am not an engineer, but do know that it is wonderful being able to hear my instrumental soundtrack collection while traveling. We have several long trips planned on the ground and by air this year and will be picking up another pair of these headphones before we take off next week. When one wants peace and quiet, just turning on the noise cancelling switch (with no music input) greatly lowers the noise of the road or jet engines.
I could not understand how Bose could charge so much for a pair of headphones until we used them and realized that we are saving our hearing (at least what is left of it at this point) and arriving less fatigued than we did without the QC3's. That is worth a fortune in our opinion.