A week ago, my beloved pair of Bose Quiet Comfort 3, Acoustic Noise Cancelling headphones broke down. It happened for no reason at all, I was listening to music on my computer, and all of a sudden I was starting to hear a cracking noise in the right earcup, and moments later it just died. I checked the manual for troubleshooting, but nothing worked.

So earlier today, I took them to the store. Since they didn't have any warranty left I had to go with Bose's return policy, gving me 40% off on a new pair. Since I live in Europe, Bose headphones are very very expensive. The QC3 cost USD 600, and the QC15 USD 520. With the discount, they have the same price as in the USA, i.e USD 299 for the QC15 and 349 for the QC3.

I usually use the headphones for noise cancellation when I work, and for listening to music when I make my daily commute to school by train. I've found the QC3 to be a bit weak when it comes to blocking out some of the high pitch sounds. However I do really like them being very small, and they are far more good looking than the QC15. The sound quality is much better too, in my optnion.

The store refused me to trade in my QC3's for a pair of QC15. However they did allow me to buy the QC3 and then directly exchange them for the QC15, frankly though they wouldn't refund me any money. Which means that I'll be paying USD 349 for either one of the two headphones.

So, which one should I chose?