Video: Bose® QuietComfort® 3 headphones

The Bose QuietComfort 3 Acoustic Noise Canceling headphones are different from other headphones in a really significant way. Bose uses a special noise canceling technology to quiet down distracting sounds around you so you can just enjoy your music.

Here's how it works. When you're listening to music through your headphones you're actually getting two sounds. The first, of course, is your music, which you want to hear. The second is background noise like the din in an office or the rumble of airplane engines. Bose places microphones on the outside of each earcup to pick up that background noise. Then they throw that noise 180 degrees out of phase and send it back through the headphones. The end result is that the two waves pretty much cancel each other out so you only hear what you want to hear. Of course if you don't want to listen to music-if you're concentrating really hard on something at work or just want to sleep on the plane-you can leave the noise canceling on and not have anything come through the headphones.

The QuietComfort 3s are compact and lightweight. They're a good choice for people who don't want around the ear headphones or who will be wearing them for long trips.

You can learn more about the Bose QuietComfort 3 Acoustic Noise Canceling headphones on crutchfield.com. And if you have any questions you can e-mail one of our advisors, chat with us online, or just pick up the phone and give us a call.