Like AliasVortex said, these are for noise cancellation. My wife is a road warrior that flies at least 3 times a month. She works while flying and can't do it without being able to kill the noise on a plane. The headphones sound great but like, lots of headphones sound really good. If that's all you want there's definitely cheaper options out there.

But she's gettin paid to do it and these are basically a part of her work tools.