Obviously the big question is whether the noise cancelling works or not and I'm glad to say that it not only works, but works superbly. I did a little test in the office by standing underneath the air conditioning unit - this is a particularly noisy bit of kit that produces a similar kind of rumble to the engine noise in an aeroplane. Flicking the noise cancelling switch on the HN-700s completely eradicated the noise, cocooning you in an ambient noise free zone. I also tried them on a tube train and although the bangs and clacks still broke through, the ambient rumble was completely gone, allowing you to listen at a lower volume level.

So, the noise cancelling is, quite simply, superb - but that's only half the story. The other half of the equation is sound quality and here the HN-700s don't perform quite so well. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that the sound quality from these headphones is awful, but it's just not as good as it could be. What you're getting is a slightly muffled sound, with an emphasis on bass resulting in a definite loss of clarity. Now opinions vary on the type of sound that is preferable - personally I look for ultimate clarity in headphones, so that I can pick out every nuance of the music, something that my Sennheiser PX 200 headphones manage with aplomb. Benny on the other hand prefers more bass in his music and is willing to accept a slight loss in clarity to facilitate this, hence his choice of a pair of Koss portaPro headphones. But we both agreed that the sound quality from the HN-700s wasn't quite good enough to satisfy either of us.