Headphone News

The Creative Aurvana X-Fi headphones review is up. Our verdict: the X-Fix are on par with the Bose QuietComfort series. The good news: better noise cancellation than either the QC 2 or 3, an on/off switch for the cancellation, and the novel ability to function without battery power. The bad news: they're not particularly comfortable.

Of course, that's just the bad news relative to the other noise-cancellers we've reviewed. In general, we don't think active noise cancellation merits a $300 price tag on its own. Is it fancy and cool featiure? Sure, but it doesn't provide better isolation than a good ear plug and it requires a battery. We've got our collective eye out for an active-canceller with great audio quality, but to date we haven't spotted one.

In summary, the headphones aren't bad. Even though we think they're over-priced, that's more a problem of feature worship than Creative gouging the public. Again, the ability to get bare-bones playback without a battery is awesome. Also, compared to true stay-at-home headphones, like the HD 555s, the X-Fis are more portable. Overall, while they're a tad pricey, the Aurvana X-Fis aren't a bad choice for mainstream listeners.