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| Brand: Audio-Technica
Category: CE
List Price: $219.95
Buy New: $94.94
You Save: $125.01 (57%)
New (65)
Avg. Customer Rating:  763 reviews
Color: Black
Media: Electronics
Autographed: No
Memorabilia: No
Batteries Included: Yes
Battery: 1 AAA
Shipping Weight (lbs): 4
Dimensions (in): 11.5 x 8.4 x 5
Arrive refreshed after a long flight, avoid distractions in a noisy office, or find peace & quiet in your living room?with ATH-ANC7 QuietPoint Active Noise-Cancelling Headphones. These lightweight, compact headphones effectively reduce distracting background noise by up to 85% while offering the superior audio quality that has made Audio-Technica a worldwide leader in electro-acoustic technology. Ideal for use with MP3, CD, DVD & in-flight entertainment systems, ATH-ANC7 QuietPoint close
Legal Disclaimer: Warranty does not cover misuse of product.
MPN: ATH-ANC7
Model: ATH-ANC7
UPC: 496131009119
EAN: 4961310091194
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
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| Customer Reviews:
 How the ATH-ANC7 saved my sanity during a European Vacation. September 14, 2007
13 out of 13 found this review helpful
I've been using the ATH-ANC7 since June, 28th and I feel confident I've gotten to know them on a fairly personal level. These are my experiences with this fine headset ..
Back in June when the reviews first started hitting magazines these headphones were impossible to find in stock. I purchased them from three places that supposedly had them in stock only to find out they really didn't. Suddenly stock appeared on Amazon's site so I jumped on them and overnighted them. What was the rush you may ask? Two days after receiving the headphones I left for a trip to Europe.
I knew I wouldn't be able to listen to the plane engine drone for 6.5 hours + in addition to the horrible conversation I was bound to run into, so noise-cancelling headphones were a must. The noise-cancelling function of these headphones is stellar. It's not quite as good as the reviews hyped it to be but it knocked out probably 75% of background noise. That, I came to find out, was more than enough to make jet engines seem rather distant. So far, so good.
First stop: London. My traveling buddy and I were doing this trip on the cheap so hostiles were where we were staying throughout our travels. We arrived at our London hostile quite late and our 6 other roommates were already sleeping. One of the visitors had quite the habit of snoring loudly enough to shake the bed, awesome. What's one to do? Ah yes, some noise-cancelling headphones would come in handy right about now. I slept with these on the entire time I was London. Note to potential purchasers, it is near impossible to sleep on your side while wearing these headphones simply because the cans are huge. Luckily enough I was so tired every night that the position I was in was of no concern.
Next stop: Barcelona. As mentioned earlier expenses were a priority, so I travelled via EasyJet and Ryan Air. That being said, I got stuck sitting next to this monster of a man who was convinced that he not only got his seat but got to share mine as well. Great. Nothing a quick, "accidental", jab to the kidneys couldn't handle. After I recovered my arm rest from invading forces I was able to kick back and enjoy some relaxing tunes in near silence, excellent.
Third stop: Rome. I wish I could say that Rome was amazing and I can't wait to go back but then I'd be a liar. See, it made sense to my traveling partner and I to rent scooters, in Rome, with absolutely no idea of where any of the roads went. This was my Judas. Here's a word to the wise; when in Rome let the Romans do the driving. After driving around the city for four hours trying to find our hostile we eventually found it. After a quick dinner I hit two man-sized potholes that I couldn't see because it was pitch black and my headlight had this tendency to, well, not work. Anyways, I broke my ankle in three places and spent the next 6 days in an Italian hospital. This is where the sanity-saving feature of the ATH-ANC7's came into play. I had loaded my iPod video with copious amounts of videos before I left for Europe. In reality I had WAY more movies than I would have been able to watch. Perhaps it was fate that I broke my ankle so I could become an avid watcher of Six Feet Under.
I used this headset at least 5-10 hours per day while I was in the hospital. Seeing as though I spoke zero Italian I kind of zoned out and just enjoyed some tunes and read quite a bit. I felt like a magician showing people the wonderful invention called noise-cancelling. They immediately started laughing and speaking very quickly. Unfortunately I have no idea what they said but I'm sure they were voicing the many nice features of this headset.
So, to kind of wrap up this rather long review here are the goods and bads:
Good:
-Great noise-cancelling
-Comfortable to wear for long (read: sleep with) periods of time
-Nice carrying case that fits a normal sized iPod perfectly
-Sturdy design
-The headphones without noise-cancelling on are still quite excellent
-Great sound clarity for movies
-The case also works very well as an iPod stand. Ah, the things you find out when you can't walk.
Bads:
-The sound quality is not as good as the reviewed made it out to seem. The basses aren't clear, the highs don't really reach the levels I would like but this also might have to do with the less than great iPod audio quality.
-They're rather big. To me, this wasn't that big of an issue because I have a huge head. But if you're a smaller person you might look like an invading alien while wearing these.
-The blue light that lets you know when the noise-cancelling on is pretty freaking bright when you're in a completely dark room.
-According to the registration card that was included with the package, these have to be registered within 14 days of purchase in order for the warranty to be valid. I found that to be pretty lame especially since I can't even find the card now and you can't register them online.
Overall, these things rock. I must have logged well over 200 hours of use since I purchased these and I have no major complaints. With just a tad better sound quality these would be a perfect score purchase. I highly recommend them.
ath anc7 vs bose qc2 October 16, 2007
13 out of 13 found this review helpful
i'm sitting here with a pair of ath-anc7 and bose qc2, confirming the common wisdom about these two. four stars to the anc7 -- would've been five if it was as comfortable to wear as the qc2. details:
1. build quality: they both have similar form factors, but the anc7 seems way sturdier. my bose-owning friends say the qc's start falling apart after a year or two.
2. comfort: bose wins hands down. both are comfortable enough to wear all day (done that), but the cloth screens in the bose are strategically tilted in the rear to stay away from your ears. it's a big difference.
3. sound: they both sound great, but different. the anc7 is a flatter, brighter hi-fi sound. the bose is warmer, with a bass boost and attenuated highs. you can make the anc7 sound like the bose with simple eq (on itunes, choose the "small speakers" eq setting). i tend to do that when using the anc7's for background music at work, and use flat eq when i'm actually paying attention. i listen to mostly jazz, your rock and roll experience may be different.
4. noise suppression: the anc7 is much better at suppressing the airconditioner noise here in the office, subjectively i'd say 30% better. i've tried neither of these on a plane. both of these give you a subtle, strange anechoic feeling (like you've put your ears in just a bit of a vacuum). i'll blame the noise cancellation for that, not knowing any better. a non-anc headphone like the grado does not give that feeling.
 Excellent to me June 9, 2007
11 out of 11 found this review helpful
I only purchased this product after reading the one review there was for the product. I let that review and the price difference between it and the Bose convince me and I am very happy. I use mine while I cut the lawn and these allow me to actually hear the iPod, and at a reasonable volume level. My ears don't ring and I can hear people talk when I finish. Highly recommended.
Very good, but a couple clarifications... August 18, 2007
11 out of 11 found this review helpful
1) These headphones do a very good job of canceling out AMBIENT noise. If you are on a plane or bus or have a noisy heater in your house, then putting these on will make a BIG difference. However, if your wife is talking on the phone or your daughter is practicing her piano, they really won't cut out on that noise much at all, maybe 10-15%. So long as you are aware of this upon purchasing, you will likely be pleased with the noise cancelling capabilities of these cans. They do a great job, but it is NOT like stepping into a vacuum.
2) Regarding the noise leakage, it does occur, but only sometimes and I haven't been able to figure it out why it occurs. To give an example, my wife was wearing the headphones on the computer listening to music and I was across the room studying. For about 20 minutes, I barely heard a thing, but suddenly then one song came on and I could hear every note very well, almost as if they were coming out of the speakers. So basically, they don't leak all the time, but for some reason there are certain frequencies or times when there does seem to be a big leakage problem. Then again, as I said above, they work best in (and I suspect were designed for) settings with loud ambient noise... While the leakage is bad, you would have to have your music turned up pretty loud for even someone right next to you to hear it over a jet engine.
In conclusion, they are VERY good noise canceling headphones, so long as you are aware that some leakage will occur and only ambient noise, not all noise, is canceled out effectively.
If you're unhappy about the sound quality or noise, read this! April 9, 2008
11 out of 11 found this review helpful
I've read a number of reviews less than happy about the sound quality and mentioning a bothersome hiss noise. Nonetheless, I needed headphones for demonstrating audio software in less than quiet places (I'm an audio engineer and programmer by trade), so I ordered a pair.
I first turned them on, with no cable connected. Noise cancellation was good, and no hiss was heard. Then I plugged them into my laptop. Hmmm, I could hear quite a bit of hiss then, with nothing playing. Then I played some music on the laptop's CD player -- I had to turn it WAY down on the computer to get a reasonable (not ear wrecking) sound level. And the highs were brittle and edgy. But there's a reason and it's easily fixable.
The reason why these problems come up is that Audio Technica (probably their marketing dept!) set the gain of these phones about 25dB higher than they should be. They probably did this because most people associate a louder sound with "sounds better" so the marketeers wanted these phones to sound louder when compared to others when used at the same volume setting. Making these with this high gain costs not a penny more than setting the gain to any other level (gain and power are very different, changing gain is just a matter of changing some resistor values when there is active circuitry involved).
But the AT engineers actually did do a good job on these phones (other than caving into the marketeers about the gain). As another reviewer mentioned earlier, you can buy external volume control adaptors to use with headphones which will let them operate at a more reasonable setting of the computer/mp3player/cdplayer's volume control. And then the noise will get turned down, too (the noise is from your player, not from the phones -- the phones are just amplifying the player'sbackground noise by a crazy amount). And the sound quality will be quite smooth and balanced and not the least bit edgy.
At the risk of getting even geekier in explaining why the high gain makes for an edgy sound, I'll try anyway (skip ahead if geekspeak isn't your thing): When you turn down the volume on nearly all modern digital devices such as computers and MP3 players, you are doing it digitally, not like in the older equipment. That new player has 16 bits of resolution, but ONLY WHEN SET TO FULL VOLUME -- at lower volumes the higher bits don't change at all, so they aren't being used. With the AT phones and my laptop computer, the volume had to be set down so very low that I effectively had a 10bit player, which sounds not a lot better than a telephone. It's about 1/16th the resolution it should be.
Brittle, edgy, noisy.
Simply adding an external inline analog volume control and operating the player at near its full level setting (on its controls, but with the added analog control turned down) gives you back the resolution you thought you had and makes these phones sound very, very good. Give it a try, you won't be sorry.
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