Earphones / Headphones: Where to try, what to buy?

I bought these for my trip back to HK earlier this year, but I returned them after using them for a few days on short distance commute in London. They gave me a funny sensation when the noise cancelling is on, and when it's off, it felt like the songs were being played under water.

The commute I tested them on was on trains, and the noise wasn't cancelled completely, not that I expected it to. Instead it was more like distant and somewhat distorted noise. I didn't like it at all, and when I walked, I could hear my own footsteps more so (maybe I am a little strange on this). As for the actual sound quality, it's average, I have had better headphones that are far cheaper, but I am by no means an expert in sound and headphones etc. They do sit very well on my head and probably some of the more confortable headphones I have tried on.

I ended up returning them and got these instead after seeing folks here saying they are good. Not noise cancelling but for less than half the price. For me, they worked really well for both my flights to and from HK (11-13 hrs ish), if anything they are a bit big and did no agree with my earrings. I managed to sleep fairly well with these on... but flights from HK are almost always ovenight flights so it might explains the sleep...

I would have kept the Bose if it wasn't the weird distorted noise I could hear... I am sure they are great but just not for me. Hope it helps you decide in some small ways.

I have some Sennheiser noise cancelling headphones. I like them and they get a lot of use. They don't totally cancel the flight noise but they do significantly cut it down. I have some Klipsch X10 with Comply tips and I don't think they cut the sound out as well.

The sound quality isn't great for the price but I only tend to use them when I'm somewhere noisy anyway.