Quelling noise is typically handled with a good pair of noise cancelling cans, and as Denon dabbles, it’s trying it in two ways: cancellation and dampening.
Cutting out the noise of the outside world isn’t easy, but depending on the type of sounds you’re looking to remove yourself from, noise cancelling headphones can help.
Capable of honing in on the sound and frequency, and essentially inverting the results, noise cancelling headphones can help cut back on the amount of external noise and let you work or listen to your tunes without the noise of the outside. It’s typically suited for the hum of transport, such as buses, trains, and aircraft, but can be used for other things, too, quelling much of the noise, and letting an amplified sound of your music or podcasts (or anything else they’re playing) be the very thing that you focus on.
Noise cancellation can come in various types, however, and active noise cancelling headphones tend not to be created equal, with some models opting for newer technology than others.
In the case of a new focus for Denon, we might be seeing a look at a slightly older approach for noise cancellation, though one of its new headphones doesn’t quite cancel noise, and focuses on passive reduction.
A little bit different, Denon’s newly released AH-GC25W are a pair of wireless headphones that rely instead on the ear pads to deliver a certain amount of noise reduction, though won’t likely do the same thing as other noise cancelling headphones.
At $599, Denon’s GC25W is clearly not going to compete with a pair of headphones that can actively hone in on frequencies to cancel out noise, but Denon has something else for that.
Arriving in the $699 Denon AH-GC30, these are Denon’s second-generation active noise cancellation headphones, built on a noise cancelling technology that can be manually shifted between three settings to cancel out the noise of the world. It’s an approach that can be seen as a little older, and found in some of the headphones from brands such as Audio Technica over five years ago, before adaptive technologies started arriving.
Outside of the noise cancellation, Denon’s AH-GC30 looks to deliver high-end sound through its FreeEdge driver, supporting AptX HD for wireless high-res Bluetooth support, with an ambient monitor to let you cut back on the noise and still hear the outside world, much like the ambient modes used on other headphones.
One thing that might throw people is the price, with the $699 price tag coming in at the high-end of the noise cancelling headphone world, and beyond the current leaders of the market from the likes Sony, Bose, and Beats. We suspect Denon is pitching this more as a hi-res audio noise cancelling headphone, much like Dali’s recent IO-6 noise cancelling cans, particularly since they grab the same price.
However we’ll reserve judgement until we go ears on with the Denon GC30, because while the approach to noise cancellation is a little old school, it’s possible that the results will feel deliberately new and modern.
For now, you’ll find both the passive noise cancelling Denon GC25W and the active noise cancelling Denon GC30 in select stores across the country.
