As an introduction, I have a technical background and many years experience in electronics, and have worked as an electronics engineer in an audio company at one time.
There are a large number of "noise canceling" headphones on the market. Most of them use digital electronic trickery that subtracts away some of the noise around the listener. These Maxell HP/NC headphones are different - they use a tiny microphone that "listens" to the sound the headphones make, and ensure that this sound exactly matches the electrical signal from your mp3 player or other audio source.
This has the effect of removing some of the ambient noise, since that noise is not present in the electrical signal going into the headphones. But even better, it also reduces the distortion and flattens the frequency response of the headphones where it counts most - at your ear. As a result, this HP/NC family of headphones has a far more accurate bass response than any other lightweight on-the-ear (supra-aural) headphone. Normally, only over-the-ear (circumaural) headphones produce this sort of deep and accurate bass.
So, these headphones quieten the background noise a little bit, and as a bonus, give you much more accurate deep bass than other on-the-ear headphones of similar size and weight. For me, the second feature is what I like most about them.
For those with an electronics background: what the HP/NC design does is apply negative feedback around the entire headphone, including the acoustic sound pressure level at your ear, by sensing this with a tiny microphone built into each earpiece. Negative feedback flattens the frequency response and lowers harmonic distortion, which is why these 'phones have such deep and accurate bass. The negative feedback is applied only at frequencies below roughly 1 kHz, so the phones have pretty accurate bass and mid frequencies.
Later models of the Maxell HP/NC phones (HP/NC-III, HP/NC-IV) have the same type of electronic design, but the headphones themselves are bigger, heavier, bulkier, and less comfortable. Also to my ears the treble response is a little dull. A pity.
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