Recently I've acquired skullcandy over-ear headphones that have many noise canceling qualities. Still, I find myself wishing I could afford the Bose. Without any doubt, the Bose Noise Cancelling headphones are the best of their kind.

With this in mind, I though it worth the research to figure out why.

As with nearly anything, there's actually quite a bit of physics involved in optimizing sound quality. For starters, to make headphones in general involves coils and magnets and a whole slew of physics. Optimizing the sounds quality is a little more simple in theory (though not necessarily in practice).

Bose headphones in particular actually have sensors designed to pick up outside sound waves and create counter waves to negate these sounds and optimize what you're listening to. It's also important to ensure that the headphone rests that go over your ears are large enough to make a seal of sorts, thus making it harder for sound to get out or in where it's not wanted. The material the headphones are made out of is crucial as well. Bose puts lots of research into finding the best material to insulate sound waves and direct the desired noises to your ear. Of course Bose doesn't publish much on all the calculations behind this, but it's pretty easy to see how quickly this can involved elaborate physics problems.

I don't know about you, but I'm determined to own a pair someday!

http://worldwide.bose.com/axa/en_au/web/noise_cancelling_technology/page.html