I went to the Iowa Corn Indy 250 race at Iowa Speedway Sunday.  It was absolutely awesome.  Went down on the Fan Walk in the pits, then took my seat in the very top row of one of the grandstands.  But that’s another entry for another day, if I ever feel like writing it.  Here are the pics if you’re interested.

Anyway, I brought my scanner with me to the speedway.  I’ve been using these cheap Koss TD/60 headphones that fully cover my ears.  So they physically block some of the engine noise of the cars on the track.  However, there are times when I have a hard time hearing the radio transmissions.

I decided to look for some noise canceling headphones to use with the scanner when I go to Chicagoland Speedway in July for the NASCAR races.  There will be way more noise – the cars are louder and there are twice as many.  This made new headphones a must.  I looked at headphones running from $32 to $118.  Bose were out – $300 and the comments are universal that they have too much bass (I hate bass) and are overpriced.  My budget was around $100.

After a lot of research, I found the $30-something Philips were cheaply made and uncomfortable.  Sony was out – I used a co-worker’s set a while back and they were uncomfortable, didn’t feel sturdy, and created a strong sensation of sound pressure on my ears, if you know what I mean.  I also considered more expensive Philips models, a pair by Audio-Technica, and a pair by Panasonic.  The Pannys and the A-Ts were both rated pretty highly; the A-Ts slghtly better.  The A-Ts cost $118 and the Pannys cost $95.

I swear, I read so many customer reviews and website reviews.  I had to have spent 5 hours reading about noise-canceling headphones.  In the end, I chose to go with the Panasonic RP-HC500.  The reviews appeared to say they were about as good as the A-Ts, had better noise reduction, were cheaper, and able to use a rechargeable AAA.  The A-Ts needed an alkaline AAA for sufficient voltage.  I don’t want to buy regular batteries anymore.  So I saved $23 by going Panasonic.  I never thought I’d  ever spend $100 on headphones.  Damn!

The headphones should arrive next week.  Hopefully they will be worth the money and will help me better hear stuff on my scanner at races.  If not, I’ll have a really fancy set of headphones for using with my MP3 player.  Recently I switched from using my awesome Sennheiser MX100 earbuds to the cheap Koss headphones because I lost the foam covers to the earbuds.  Now they hurt to wear.  I actually had two sets of the Sennheisers from a couple of Rio MP3 players I have.  One set broke.  Now one set’s missing the foam bud covers.  I thought about picking up a new set of Sennheiser earbuds, but if I’m getting these fancy Panasonic headphones, I’ll just use those for listening at home and put up with the earbuds when away from home.

Sorry if this was boring.  I am a very bored nerd who doesn’t have anything better to do.  I’m on vacation from work.  I’m tired of unsuccessfully seeking female companionship and additional part-time employment.  So here I am talking about headphones I bought and I have no idea if they’re any good or not because I don’t have them yet!  This entry would’ve made sense if I actually had a review to write!