I love these headphones!! I got these in Narita Airport and obsessed over them the whole airplane ride from Tokyo to Bangkok...for a very valid reason. These headphones are great. Travelling a lot, I usually have to jack up the volume to nearly full blast and then get a ear-ache after listening for only a short while. But not with these. They cancel most of the noise in the airplane, no more droning sounds! I can now listen to music on the airplane and other noisy places using reasonable volume. I think ths product does what it's supposed to do, cancels most of the noise. It never promised silence, so if that's what you are expecting from these, then don't waste your money. What it does when you turn the noise-cancelling circuit on, however, is cut off most of the very low sounds, so that when you're in places with loud engines sounds (e.g. on an airplane)you won't be able to hear a lot of the grumbles. Plus, this model is an over-the-ear design, so even it cuts off some noise even without the noise-cancelling circuit on.