If you want a pair that shuts out a loud house, works without a cable and keeps your kid's voice clear on video calls, choose Bose Noise Cancelling; if you need honest, open, wired sound for a kid who actually sits and listens at a desk, choose Sennheiser HD 560. That's the short version, and it's the one I'd give a parent standing in an aisle trying to work out what to buy for a kid before the school year starts. These two headphones aren't really fighting for the same job. One is a noise-shutting travel and study tool. The other is a window into the music.
One thing worth saying up front: both spec sheets list their age range as adult, so treat both as teen-and-up picks rather than something for a small child.
• Bose Noise Cancelling — biggest strength: 11 levels of active noise cancelling plus a microphone system built to keep a voice clear in noisy, windy places. It's the pick for study, travel and online lessons.
• Bose Noise Cancelling — biggest trade-off: everything runs on a battery (up to 20 hours per charge), and the sealed faux-leather ear cups get warm over a long afternoon.
• Sennheiser HD 560 — biggest strength: open-back ear cups, drivers tilted to the natural angle of your ears, and a 6 Hz – 38 kHz range. The sound is wide and truthful rather than punchy.
• Sennheiser HD 560 — biggest trade-off: it's wired, it's open, and it cannot survive a noisy room. No battery, no noise cancelling, and sound leaks in both directions.
• Who each pick is for: Bose is the kid who needs quiet on demand. Sennheiser is the kid who needs to hear everything in the recording.
This is the Headphones 700, and the headline feature is the noise cancelling: eleven adjustable levels, so a kid can dial from "I still need to hear mum call dinner" down to near-silence during a maths test at the kitchen table. The microphone array is the other half of the story. It adapts to noisy and windy surroundings so the voice on the other end stays clear — which matters far more than most parents expect when a teen is doing three hours of online tutoring a week.
How We Research
We compare products from their published specs and features; the verdicts below are our independent editorial opinions.
The rest of the design is built around convenience. Bluetooth 5 gives you roughly 10 metres of range, the ear cups are tilted for fit and hung on a lightweight stainless steel headband, and the whole thing weighs about 0.25 kg. Controls are touch and voice: tap the ear cup, or hand things over to Alexa or Google Assistant for music, weather or navigation. Holding the right ear cup jumps straight back into a Spotify session, though that trick is iOS-only. Battery life is rated at up to 20 hours of wireless playback, and the box includes a USB charging cable, an audio cable and a carrying case. Warranty is one year.
Who should skip it? Anyone who wants to hear the room around them, anyone who dreads yet another device to charge, and anyone shopping for earphones for gym use — these are over-ear, sealed and padded, and they belong on a plane seat or a desk, not on a treadmill.
The HD 560S is the opposite philosophy. Open-back ear cups let sound waves expand naturally, which is why the presentation feels like a room rather than a tube. Sennheiser tilts the drivers to the angle your ears naturally sit at, and the result is a wide soundstage with real depth. The 38 mm polymer-blend dynamic drivers are tuned for linear movement, so bass shows up with presence and control instead of bloat, and the frequency range stretches from 6 Hz to 38 kHz.
It is wired, full stop. The detachable cable runs 3 metres and terminates in a 6.35 mm plug with a flexible 3.5 mm adapter, so it will go into a laptop, a desktop, an audio interface or a receiver — though the 120 ohm impedance and 110 dB sensitivity mean it's happiest with something that has a little output behind it. Weight is 240 grams, and the open-back design breathes, which is exactly what you want during a two-hour homework stretch. The enclosure is plastic, the box contains the headphones, the cable and an owner's manual, and the warranty runs two years.
Who should skip it? Anyone who needs to block out a sibling, a TV or a bus. Open-back headphones leak sound outward and let noise inward — that's not a flaw, it's the design, but it makes them useless for a shared bedroom with a loud sibling and hopeless on a commute.
• Best for blocking out the house during homework → Bose Noise Cancelling. Eleven ANC levels and no cable to trip over.
• Best for calls, tutoring and online classes → Bose Noise Cancelling. The adaptive microphone system is the reason.
• Best for music, mixing practice and critical listening → Sennheiser HD 560. Wide, accurate, honest; the kind of tuning that teaches a young ear what a recording actually sounds like.
• Best for a kid who forgets to charge things → Sennheiser HD 560. Plug in, listen, done — no battery anxiety, ever.
• Best for travel and shared spaces → Bose Noise Cancelling. The included carrying case and the sealed cups make it the one that survives a flight.
• Best for a quiet desk at home → Sennheiser HD 560. Three metres of detachable cable and open cups you can wear all evening without your ears sweating.
• Best comfort over long sessions → a genuine tie. Bose is around 0.25 kg with a stainless headband and angled cups; Sennheiser lands at 240 g with a "barely there" fit. If you're searching for the best comfortable headset between the two, it comes down to whether your kid prefers padded and sealed or light and airy.
• Best warranty coverage → Sennheiser HD 560. Two years against Bose's one.
In my opinion, for a kid in 2026 the Bose Noise Cancelling is the safer buy. Schoolwork happens in noisy houses, lessons happen over video, and eleven levels of noise cancelling plus a microphone that fights wind and crowds solves problems the Sennheiser simply isn't built for. I'd only switch to the HD 560S if your kid listens at a desk, in a quiet room, and genuinely cares about how music sounds — because that's where the open-back design earns its place. Buy Bose for the kid who needs quiet; buy Sennheiser for the kid who needs detail. And check the current price on Amazon before you commit, since it moves around.
Yes, for the right kid. It's light at 240 g, breathes well for long sessions and has a two-year warranty. The catch is that it's wired and open-back, so it's a desk headphone for a teenager, not something for a noisy room or a commute.
There's an audio cable and a 2.5 mm jack in the box, so you can plug it in. Just don't expect the Bluetooth or the noise cancelling to run without battery power — those are the features you're paying for.
Bose, clearly. The microphone system is designed to isolate a voice from surrounding noise, and the wireless freedom means no cable snagging on a chair. The Sennheiser has no microphone in the box.
Not necessarily. The drivers are low-impedance enough that Sennheiser positions them for laptops, portable players and interfaces, and the 3.5 mm adapter covers most headphone jacks. A dedicated interface will get more out of them, but a laptop will drive them.
• iclever vs belkin kids headphones
• Anker Soundcore Liberty Buds vs JOYO Ear Monitor System
As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon and affiliated sites.
When you buy through links on this page, we may earn a commission from qualifying purchases at no extra cost to you.
Amazon and the Amazon logo are trademarks of Amazon or its affiliates. This site is an independent third-party review and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Amazon or the product brands mentioned.