Woot : One Day, One Deal (SM)

We’ve sold a lot of media players lately, from highfalutin’ multimedia razzle-dazzlers with gigunda hard drives all the way down to Malaysian knockoffs made of imitation plastic with barely enough memory to hold “American Pie” at 128 kbps. If you bought one, you’ve noticed there’s one thing they all have in common: they always, always come with really crappy earphones.

No matter how much scratch you drop, the included earbuds or headphones or whatever are invariably little better than the ones they hand out on airplanes. Of course, that means everything is going according to plan…because then you have to buy the “premium” earphones made by – coinkydink of coinkydinks – the very same company. Inkidentally, it’s happened to us over and over, so we know how easy it is to fall into that trap.

Well, not in our house. Not today.

These Jabra C820s Noise Cancelling Headphones fit like a head-shaped glove and are built like a brick headhouse. First-class right down the line, pally. But to know their excellent, noise-cancelling sound is to truly love them, particularly if you’re airborne this holiday season. You’ll still hear those brats wailing in the seat behind you, but from behind your Jabra noise-cancelling force field, the roar of the jet will seem but a whimper.

Now, Active Noise Cancellation is hell on battery life. So unlike certain other fold-up noise-cancelling headphones we could mention, the Jabra C820s lets you turn it off when there’s no noise to cancel. That way, you’re not killing your AAA when you’re listening to the guided audio tour of the art museum, or grooving to some Vivaldi in your underground bunker.

As Bob Dylan said after Jesus drove him insane, “You gotta serve somebody.” Someone’s going to get your headphone dollar. Who deserves it more: the same scheming hucksters who sold you the crappy earphones in the first place? Or the unassuming men and women who strove, or strived, or stroved to bring you high-end noise-cancelling headphones at an earbud price? God bless Jabra. God bless Active Noise Cancellation. And God bless America.