By Lauren Kucera

First spotted on a trip to Montreal this past summer on local Metro (what they call the subway up north) riders, the trend of oversized headphones has made its way to the states and has infiltrated all segments of the youth market, from street culture all the way to the boring old college library.

These all-encompassing headphones may be tougher to throw in a backpack or sport at the gym than your ordinary earbuds, but their instant cool factor and noise-cancelling capabilities make it more than worth any slight inconvenience.

So what’s this trend about – quality of sound or making a fashion statement? Unless you’re spending $300+ on a pair of Beats, wearers of these oversized headphones mentioned that the quality of music is about the same as the quality that earbuds provide. Larger headphones do allow for noise cancellation though (which explains their appearance in libraries), allowing wearers to block everything else out and fully engage in their own personal world of rhythm and sound.

So, why not kill two birds with one stone? Cancel out the noise of the world around you, and look cool while you do it with the rising trend of supersized headphones.