To me, the "airhead" isn't a knock-down revelation worth any grand overstatement, but it does what it sets out to do quite well, and deserves a solid recommendation. #1) It does sound beyond appreciably better than my stock CD portable (a recent Philips), and #2) it provides enough gain to take away the airplane, without the annoying "noise cancelling" tricks of that sort of headphones - most of which are audible and create an unnatural feeling of pressure on my ears. I prefer the pressure in my ears to be musical, not sound like some faint white-noise generator somewhere behind my sinuses. Lastly, it's worth the money if you travel more than once a year, or even if you only travel once a year and just plain don't like it, dammit, and prefer good sound to keep your mind at ease.
