Silence is an odd proposition for a pair of headphones. What this product is really offering is isolation: digital wizardry to separate the world between your earbuds from the maelstrom around you. The Digital Silence DS-321D headphones use ambient noise cancelling (ANC) technology to dial down the noise from your environment so that you can focus on whatever it is you’re trying to listen to: music, audiobooks, podcasts or calls. All without cranking the volume up to unsafe levels.

I’ve been testing a pair of these headphones for a few weeks now and I can confirm that they work well. What they don’t do is completely block out noise: you are still very aware of the hubbub going on, it’s just quieter. In fact these headphones provide very stark evidence of just how noisy the world around us really is. For example, air conditioning makes a hell of a racket. Normally your brain tunes this out, but pop these headphones in for a while and then turn off the ANC and you hear just how loud a sound you have been competing with, both when talking and listening.

There are alternative products on the market that cut out more sound: very expensive over-ear headphones from Bose for example, or much cheaper but more tight-fitting in-ear sets from the likes of Denon or Sennheiser. Denon or Sennheiser in-ear sets are my usual choice of headphone (I go through a lot) but they do have flaws. For a start you may not hear much from outside but you do hear everything going in inside your own head, which is surprisingly noisy. Being totally cut off from the outside world is problematic to: you can’t hear traffic for example.

Using the DS-321Ds I’ve found it much easier to listen to music or speech while walking around cities and train stations, without having to constantly pop my headphones out when there’s an announcement or I need to cross the road. They do have flaws: the deliberate design that stops them cutting out all external noise means they fit less well than my Denons and hence don’t always stay in the ear. The cable lengths seem a little odd too: too short a run from the electronics to the plug, and too little between the right-hand earphone and the mic/control button. And when the noise cancelling is engaged there is a very quiet but definitely audible hiss. But they are priced competitively for such a high tech rig (£59.99), and the fact that they have become my every day choice beyond the necessary trial period justifies a good four stars for me.