Three days a week I commute 90 minutes each way into Manhattan. Most mornings, the train is fairly quiet; there is an unwritten weekday commuter rule (suspended on weekends!) that noise and conversation should be kept to a minimum. So most mornings I work or read or sleep. From time to time though I end up in a car with a couple of folks that just have to have a conversation. All the way. Nonstop.

Those are the days I resort to my iPhone and Pandora for enough peace to concentrate. I used to use the earbuds that came with my phone even they don’t really cut out the noise very well. I just didn’t want to cart around a set of bulky headphones on top of all the stuff I carry back and forth every night – iPad, laptop, shoes and so on, and smaller headphones generally didn’t seem much better than the earbuds.

So I was delighted when BlogHer and Monster asked if I would like to try the N-Tune noise isolating headphones.

Things I love:

• Great sound quality for my music and they keep out most of the annoying conversations I am trying to block.
• Very comfortable, avoids the “itchy ear” syndrome that sometimes comes from using earbuds for an extended period of time.
• Small form factor, plus they come with a little carry bag to protect them in my bag.
• Tangle free cord.

I also asked my 13 year old son and my brother, both of whom also use headsets regularly, what they thought. My son, who primarily uses a headset for gaming and Skype calls with other gamers reported that the sound quality was good, but he prefers a wireless headset that completely surrounds the ears. Better to totally block me out when I speak to him I suppose. My brother also liked the sound quality for listening to music but wasn’t crazy about the microphone for making phone calls.  I received a call on the train the other morning while listening to my tunes, and I thought the quality was fine.

Net — if listening to music or watching videos is your primary use for a headset, the Monster N-Tune is good choice. I probably won’t replace my earbuds for phone calls, especially when walking down the street in Manhattan 🙂 but these candy apple red beauties will definitely get a spot in my commuting bag. And if candy apple red isn’t your color, there are 4 other choices – green, purple, blue and orange. The N-Tune would also make a great holiday gift for the music-lover in your life.

Want to try them out for yourself?  For a chance to win your very own pair of N-Tune headphones (valued at $150), read all about them here and let me know in the comments which color you prefer. The comments on this post will be aggregated with the comments on the posts from the other bloggers participating in this review, and 25 pairs will be given away.

Sweepstakes Rules:

No duplicate comments.

You may receive (2) total entries by selecting from the following entry methods:

1. Leave a comment in response to the sweepstakes prompt on this post
2. Tweet (public message) about this promotion; including exactly the following unique term in your tweet message: “#SweepstakesEntry”; and leave the URL to that tweet in a comment on this post
3. Blog about this promotion, including a disclosure that you are receiving a sweepstakes entry in exchange for writing the blog post, and leave the URL to that post in a comment on this post
4. For those with no Twitter or blog, read the official rules to learn about an alternate form of entry.

This giveaway is open to US Residents age 18 or older. Winner will be selected via random draw, and will be notified by e-mail. You have 72 hours to get back to me, otherwise a new winner will be selected. BlogHer will pool entries from participating blogs and select a sweepstakes winner at random and will contact the winner with details about fulfilling the prize. The Official Rules are available here. This sweepstakes runs from 10/2/13 – 11/1/13.