Bose convert here after years of working in open offices, coding in cafes, flying, and what not. I have somewhat sensitive ears as a classical (hobbyist) music

Bose convert here after years of working in open offices, coding in cafes, flying, and what not. I have somewhat sensitive ears as a classical (hobbyist) musician and am always paranoid about hearing loss. My main pain points have been: 1. Distinct voices in conversation - I find that voices block voices, and instrumental music does a poorer job at this since it's maybe on different frequencies? I usually use a cafe-noise app like coffitivity to best stay focused. 2. Loud continuous noises a la plane - the Bose headphones basically reduce the noise by ~20db I think, which makes the experience overall more bearable. The main downside of noise-canceling headphones for some subset of people (alas me included) is that you get a weird pressure feeling when using them for prolonged periods of time. Apparently this is just us perceiving the change in ambient sound as a pressure difference so we feel like popping our ears. This basically happens in hour 1 of my usage. As for attrition - I've had my QC35's for about a year and they haven't had any issues yet. My old QC25's lasted for 3 years and still work fine but got donated to make way for my new bluetooth ones. https://smile.amazon.com/Bose-QuietComfort-Wireless-Headphones-Cancelling/dp/B0756CYWWD?_encoding=UTF8&ie=UTF8&keywords=qc35&pldnCmp=dls&pldnCrt=rdl&pldnNewCustomer=1&pldnSite=1&tag=sdnet-20&qid=1539101946&ref_=smi_ge_cnf_cnf_smi&s=electronics&sr=1-3 https://smile.amazon.com/Bose-QuietComfort-Wireless-Headphon... (note affiliatized Amazon donation link)