My best 2020 sim race gear purchase :The Bose 700 noise cancelling headphones

[HoiHman]

Race gear in general is noisy.
Most time if you increase the intensity, you also increase the noise levels

This applies to my
- AccuForce
- Buttkickers (especially with Engine Rpm effects)
- SFX100 motion rig
- But mostly with the GS-5 G-seat
- and the windsimulator with 2 Seaflows

A while ago SimXperience released an update giving the GS-5 servos much more speed, but especially with the new "extreme mode" the servos make a lot of noise. Same thing can be said from the Seaflow Bilge blowers when running them on max speeds.

I used to compensate this by turning up the volume of either my wired over ear headphones or the speakers of the Valve Index.

However both the GS-5 and windsimulator at full intensity can not be overpowered by any audio device without causing hearing damage. You will always be hearing them in the background.

So i decided to try out the Bose 700 noise cancelling headphones. I bought them from Amazon for their good return policy.

Connecting them was very easy. The headphones can be connected with 2 devices at the same time. So i can switch between my RacePC and Laptop without having to sync or anything.

The noise cancelling of the Bose 700 is very very good. Even after 2 weeks of use, i'm still amazed how much noise they are able to filter out.

When i'm in a game menu, with the Bose 700 on, i hearing total silence. As soon as i turn the noise cancelling of i notice how much noise there's coming from the fans of :

- The GS-5 control box
- The AccuForce control box
- The 2 inuke amplifiers
- The watercooling running at full speed
- The 2080ti running at full speed

But ingame, as soon as i'm driving, it gets even better.

Wind at full speed, without hearing it
I only feel the buttkickers, GS-5 and SFX100 without hearing them at all

I can now race at much lower audio levels and protect my hearing.

During off road sessions, if i set the volume of the Bose 700 at 55%, i'm not hearing the GS-5 servos at all. If i turn noise cancelling off, i can barely hear my game audio because it's overpowered by the high pitch noises of the GS-5 servos.

I have tried to look/hear audio lag, but i can't detect any. When watching Netflix on my laptop is the audio and video is also perfectly in sync.

I like the Bose 700 so much that i even removed the (very good) speakers from the Valve Index.

Yes... it's that good, that i now already know this will be the best race sim gear i bought in 2020

 

[Chrhun]

I hear you (pun intended). I've got he B&O ones, and the sound quality is great, but even better is the noice cancellation because I can now only hear what is coming from the game.

Will make be even more shocked if someone disturbs me while racing - now I can't see or hear anything while driving!

 

[Mr Latte]

A good pair of closed-back headphones (noise isolation) should let you hear pretty much, only what the headphones are outputting. I don’t think people necessarily need (noise cancelling) headphones.

I have a set of Sony noise-canceling pair and they too are quite good but the audio quality isn’t close compared to my Z7 pair.

I do agree that hearing only the game audio does indeed help immerse the user.

 

[Chrhun]

Will make be even more shocked if someone disturbs me while racing - now I can't see or hear anything while driving!

I've got the Beoplay H9's and I was just about to write the same reply, wearing the VR headset and this kind of headphones 100% isolate you from the outside world.

 

[Elaphe]

I have the Oculus Rift S. The integrated sound is absolutely useless, so I considered using a pair of good circumaural headphones. However, I didn’t want to have two separate devices and the annoyance of grabbing both of them to my cockpit every time I want to play. That’s why I purchased the Bionik Mantis headphones, which have the advantage that they are permanently attached to the headset. After some weeks of use, I must say I can’t stand the fact that there is never enough pressure between the ear pads and my ears. So, even though the sound quality of these headphones is good, the resulting perceived sound is very weak. Also, the way the Bionik are clamped to the headset and the many adjustment you can make to them means that they move and never stay firmly positioned where they should be. This makes them somewhat uncomfortable. Also, the whole headset with everything installed is too bulky. So I sold them and I opted for a simple and effective solution. I looked for my old Sony earphones, plugged them into the headset jack and rooted the cable wisely so that everything looks clean and not messy. The left and right earphones hang from the sides of the headset. Once playing, you even forget you are wearing them, and the sound is powerful and detailed. Actually, I've always been impressed with the sound of these Sony headphones. I have tried many models from different brands and most of them sound really bad.

 

[HoiHman]

Yes, it's true that there's a slight added discomfort with over ear headphones compared to let's say using the Valve Index, with it's speakers.

When racing, it doesn't bother me at all, taking the HMD of/and or putting it back on takes some getting used to.

But it's worth the effort for me. Personally i don't like earbuds and i'm pretty sure they won't be able to do as good as noise cancelling as over ear headphones do.

I can't stress enough that it's the noise cancelling part of these headphones that is making them so great.

I also have a (wired) pair Sennheiser over ear headphones, the audio on them is great to, but they don't have the active noise cancellation. It makes so much difference, my race rig is really great, but very noisy.

This was the final piece of the puzzle that was missing.

 

[Elaphe]

As regard closed / noise cancelling headphones, my experience is not so good. I owned the Sennheiser HD 25 some years ago and I couldn't use them for more than half an hour before I started to suffer headache. It's true I tried them with loud heavy metal, but since then I've always chosen open headphones.

 

[maelstrom]

As regard closed / noise cancelling headphones, my experience is not so good. I owned the Sennheiser HD 25 some years ago and I couldn't use them for more than half an hour before I started to suffer headache. It's true I tried them with loud heavy metal, but since then I've always chosen open headphones.

It’s a known problem with noise cancelling headphones for some people. I bought a pair of Bose noise cancelling headphones last year and, although they were excellent, each time I used them, after about 20 minutes I started to get what felt like a “tension” headache. I took them back to the local Bose shop to see if I could change them for a non-noise cancelling pair. The shop assistant said that his colleague had exactly the same problem as did a number of other customers. The bottom line is to buy them from somewhere you can return them if you have the problem as trying them in-store was too short a time to highlight the issue.

 

[Mr Latte]

Ooh, look what you made me do, look what you made me do, look what you just made me do...

Well I got curious and did some looking into a few reviews/comparisons. Although as a fan of Sony headphones I opted for a pair of their new noise-canceling Sony WH-1000XM3. Sold a pair of my old Sony MDR 1BT to a work colleague to help fund these and they are not bad at all on early listening. Also yeah the noise canceling is quite effective with this pair too and with a 30hr battery super convenient as well.


Now I'm totally covered, here's a high-quality stereo fidelity pair, a wireless 9.1 multichannel pair and now these rather nice noise-canceling headphones to enjoy!

The XM3 do seem rather popular with Youtuber tech guys in reviews. Not that I needed more headphones but these will be great for on the go or holidays as well....

 

[bassun]

lol - I keep losing head phones to the dog and wife. Vacuum ate my plantronics, dog ate on something from monoprice and a JVC set. For the moment I hear everything and use the Rift audio lol. On a good note, I can tell that there are some rattles I need to track down... :-(