Creative Aurvana X-Fi

The MDR-NC500D costs $100 more than the Aurvana X-Fi headphones and offers less audio quality, but they are a bit more comfortable. They also come with the ability to fool around with your noise cancellation curves, but that’s more of a novelty than anything else. The X-Fi has some features that do actually change the sound noticeably and, wonder of wonders, allow you to turn noise cancellation on and off as you please. The X-Fis win this match-up hands down.

The QC2s cost the same, offer better overall audio quality (except for noise cancellation), and are more comfortable than the X-Fis. They can’t, however, play music when the battery is dead. We’d tend to recommend the X-Fi over these simply because they’ll be able to function as headphones more often than the QC2s. It is, however, a close match-up.

The QC3s will cost you $50 more than the X-Fis and deliver better audio quality and a more comfortable wear experience. In general, they’re about as good as the QC2s; maybe you get slightly less value for your money. Either way, we’d still lean towards the X-Fis since they don’t need a battery to pump you full of music.

The problem with the HD 555s is their versatility. If you’re staying in one place and can either use or tuck away the cord, they’re great. They’re not so great for carting around town, however. First of all, the cord is cumbersome. Secondly, the headphones have open backs and cloth pads, which means they aren’t able to isolate you from external sounds and there’s little to stop your own music from wafting throughout the world. If you want versatility, the X-Fis are certainly better equipped than the HD 555s. If you can deal with your headphones being confined to your home — or your home theater in particular — then the HD 555s are far and away the better choice.