Bose is consistently rated in a classy by itself for noise canceling. Not the audiofile quality, but the noise canceling. Which is what I was in search of. And I really like my QC15's for that. They are heaven on a plane. I also got them for free using my hotel points...sometimes it's good to travel a lot.
I'm not sure my ears are good enough to worry about audiofile quality. I know that I don't spend any effort getting audiofile source material. Add to that, podcasts and audio books are more of what I listen to than music these days. So no...I don't need to pay top dollar for the best sounding music.
I was frustrated, however, due to not being able to hear the movie I was watching on my iPad the last plane trip I took. I fly regularly. And normally take the QC15's, but was trying to save space and only took my Apple ear pods. I had to press my hands over my ears to try to hear the plane was so loud.
Noise isolation should work for this purpose as well as noise cancellation. I'm hoping.
The whole "sleep comfort" is another point of consideration. It's the other "what I don't like about my current headphones". Can't sleep on my side at all with the over the ear Bose...and the Apple ear pods aren't particularly comfortable...such that I usually take out the side I'm sleeping on.
A plus for the over the ears headphones....they were nice for my winter walks...acted like ear muffs
