Coming in a pretty nondescript box, the ABLE PLANET NC300 may not instantly standout, but once you open them, it’s clear that a lot of thought went into the design and presentation of these headphones. Inside of the box, the NC300B comes inside a nice portable hard cloth covered case with a nice rubber ABLE PLANET logo. Once you unzip it, the headphones are secure in the case, along with a small zipper bag with extra accessories included and the AUX cable, which is 4 feet in length. The AUX cable is detachable from the actual headphones, which certainly comes in handy (and looks cool as well). Included with the NC300 are two headphone adapters, one meant for use in an airplane, while the other is for home stereos. Also included is a AAA battery for the headphones, which is a very nice touch. The battery pops right into a little hatch that opens up in the headphones, which is very easily accessible.

There’s a nice, professional look to the NC300, which come in either all black or white. As these are noise-canceling headphones, they must be turned on (a little red light on the headphones displays if they are on) with a battery inside to perform this function. There is white noise that comes from the headphones when they are on. When you turn sound on, though, this noise is very hard to detect. If you don’t use the noise-canceling function, the headphones aren’t nearly as loud and don’t quite sound as good, so you’re always going to want to use this feature for optimal sound quality. If noise-cancelling is on and no other sound coming out of the headphones, you can still hear outside noises, but once you start playing something, it’s pretty hard to hear anything else. They certainly do their job well.

To test the actual sound quality of the NC300, I played some songs ranging from rock to electronic music. Surprisingly, the more bass the song had, the better the headphones sounded. The NC300 reproduces bass very well. That’s not to say that songs with more focus on vocals or less bass didn’t sound great as well, though. Pretty much any song I listened to was reproduced very well and the fact that the AUX cable has a volume dial on it makes it easy to adjust volume on the fly.

There are a few downsides of the NC300, though. The first is the fact that they are pretty loud outside of the listening experience of the main listener. In a fairly quiet room, the noise from them would be pretty noticeable. There could be a few instances where this might be a problem, such as if you were in an environment where even the slightest bit of sound could be an issue. Also, while the headphones a have a nice adjustable band, I did find that when listening to them for awhile, they weren’t overly comfortable. I suspect though that other around-the-ear headphones might not be any more comfortable, though.

The ABLE PLANET NC300 headphones are really nice. They look sleek, sound great and include a lot of nice little extras. There’s even a detachable microphone that can be purchased separately ($39.99 MSRP) which makes them more useful for gamers. You can pick up a pair for around $100, making them a great value. If you’re looking for some nice noise-cancelling headphones, the ABLE PLANET NC300 are certainly a nice choice.