What is the difference between closed headphones and noise canceling headphones?

Question

I'm looking to spend about 100-150 dollars on a good pair of headphones and I need to know the difference. I'm currently in a dorm room and I'm using the headphones for music and videos and movies on my computer as well as listening to music on my mp3 player.

Answer 1

Passive noise canceling insulates your ears and active noise canceling makes a white noise louder than outside noise (or partially blocks outside noise) and allows you to hear your music playing. It blocks constant noises like wind, rain, engine or machinery noises best. You'll still hear sharp or loud noises in the immediate area.

Noise-canceling headphones come in either active or passive types. Technically speaking, any type of headphone can provide some passive noise reduction. That's because the materials of the headphones themselves block out some sound waves, especially those at higher frequencies. The best passive noise-canceling headphones, however, are circum-aural types that are specially constructed to maximize noise-filtering properties. That means they are packed with layers of high-density foam or other sound-absorbing material, which makes them heavier than normal headphones. The tradeoff of all that extra weight is a reduction in noise of about 15 to 20 decibels (dB). But considering jet engines create 75 to 80 dB of noise inside the aircraft cabin, passive models have some serious limitations. That's where active noise-canceling headphones come in.

Answer 2

Closed earphones are earphones with no external (outside the ear) noise and an ear plug that is inside the ear. They can block out some noise, but not all and come in all price ranges. (20$- about 175$)

I.e. Skullcandy and Koss in ear buds.

Noise canseling earphones are earphones that usually fit over or on your ear and actually make a vacuum or static noise barrier over the noise on the outside so you can't hear anything in most instances. They are really expensive (175$-500$+) and run on batteries. The vacuum action ones hurt the first couple of times you use them because they can pop your ears.

I.e. Bose and other high end brands...