The NC250s don't have any of the nice extra features of some and it suffers from a flimsy cable and awkward battery placement - you have to take off the right earpad to get at the battery compartment.

PLUS

• Relatively inexpensive
• Good overall noise cancellation
• Good sound quality

MINUS

• Flimsy cable
• Awkward battery replacement

We turn now to the other type of headphone product, supra-aural phones, with cups that sit on the outside of the ear rather than encircling it. The JVC NC250s list for $250, a bargain for phones this good.
The ear cups are almost as big as on the nominally circumaural Maxell product, but with wider pads. They sit comfortably on the ear, thanks partly to a loose-fitting but relatively secure headband and partly to the soft cushioning in the padding.

That cushioning also provides a remarkable amount of passive noise cancellation. In my testing, it cut out high-frequency sounds.

Sound quality was also quite good. The sound wasn't as warm as others tested, nor was bass response as good. Still, the JVC product is impressive.

All the supra-aural phones, for reasons to do with speaker impedance, play louder than the circumaural models. This is important, because with some players - the Microsoft Zune I used in testing, for example - the circumaurals cannot generate enough volume for good audibility in noisy environments. That was not a problem with the JVC phones.

The NC250s don't have any of the nice extra features of some and it suffers from a flimsy cable and awkward battery placement - you have to take off the right earpad to get at the battery compartment.