raveling this holiday season? Do quite a bit of flying for business? Airplane noise, caused by engines, air flow, babbling neighbors and crying babies-combine to irritate at best, cause loss of sleep and work time. Noise cancellation headphones are the answer to bringing peace and enjoyment to your flight or anywhere else you'd like to block out noise. The headphones work by using a microphone that listens to the surrounding noise. A circuit inside the mechanism creates a sound wave that is the complete opposite of that sound, reducing the noise.

Most noise canceling devices fit around the ear, since the simple act of covering the ear blocks more noise. Higher frequencies are more difficult to cancel than low due to the shorter wavelength. For example, that screaming baby is going to be harder to squelch than the low throbbing hum of a jet engine.

No headphone will cancel out all noise; however, noise cancellation combined with your iPod or movie, does greatly enhance your trip. All the headphones can be connected to CD players, MP3 players and DVD players and some come with airplane adapters.

We sampled nine different headphones and conducted extensive performance testing. For the most part, low range music-that with a lot of bass, like hip-hop and rock sound cleaner with the noise activation circuit active; whereas higher frequencies such as speech sound modified.

If your budget isn't large, you can't beat the price of the Panasonic RP-HC100's. For superior noise canceling effectiveness, we'd recommend the Bose Quiet Comfort 3; however, the noise cancellation feature cannot be turned off. but overall our top choices would be the Sony MDR NC50's or the Sennhiser PCX 300's. Whichever you choose, may your next flight be a safe and quiet one.