Sony Shows Off New Headphones, Earbuds

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Seems that Sony’s been busy lately, and the results of all their industry has yielded a set of new audio devices for the portable market, specifically, the RF865 headphones and the NC-13 earbuds. But wait until you hear what these bring to the table.

The NC-13 earbuds may not look like much–they look like earbuds; there’s just not much going on there–but what they’ll add to your music listening will be a pretty nice surprise. These earbuds are geared to be a budget-priced replacement (it’s really only budget in the comparative sense) to the$300 NC300D models. While the NC300Ds are impressive, canceling fully 99 percent of ambient noise so you can listen to your own noise largely unimpeded, the NC-13s will offer a similar noise cancellation–of 87.4 percent. You may wonder just what an 11.6 percent difference in noise sounds like–I recommend going to your television set, putting the volume up to 30 and then dropping back to 27 to get an approximation, and you’ll likely find there’s not much difference there. However, you’ll notice one big difference right away in the damage this does to your wallet. While the NC300D will set you back, as I mentioned, $300, the NC-13 line will set you back $70. So an 11.6 percent reduction in noise cancellation gets you about a 76.6 percent drop in price? Sign me up!

And if you’d rather not go sticking things in your ears, don’t worry, because Sony’s also got a more traditional set of over the ear headphones for you. And the best part is, not only are the RF865 headphones wireless, but they are wireless at phenomenal ranges. Sony, for its part, pegs these as being able to fire your audio up to 100 meters (328 feet for the non-metrics) from the dock, and offer up 25 hours of playtime assuming you charge them for 3.5 hours first, which isn’t that hard. You have to sleep sometime, after all.

No word on price with the RF865s just yet, but the NC-13s are available now out at Sony’s store.