Still, at the end of the day, what counts is audio quality. Both units did an admirable job of canceling outside noise, although neither provided a totally silent environment. It was clear that slightly different parts of the audio spectrum were leaking through with each unit, making it hard to determine an overall winner. The subjective call, however, goes to the Bose, though not by much.

Canceling noise is useless if sound quality is lousy. I listened to both music and spoken text samples on the headsets to judge the quality of the audio. Again, both headsets did a good job, although the Able Planet unit's sound quality did have a few warts. Heavy bass tended to be a bit more thuddy than with the Bose, and the spoken text samples had a "crunchy" high end. The Bose product had a more pure, natural sound with all samples.

Bose has owned the high-end noise canceling market for years and, with features like a rechargeable battery and better overall sound, the Quiet Comfort 3 still is a better choice than the Able Planet Linx Audio, even though it costs US$50 more.

Bose Quiet Comfort 3, $349.00, www.bose.com

Able Planet Clear Harmony Linx Audio, $299.99, www.ableplanet.com