When I first started flying I bought a cheap avcomm headset off ebay for a fair amount under $100 (new headset). It has a little push to talk built into the side of it that is very handy on GA aircraft if your yoke mounted ptt stops working (not all avcomm headsets have this). I've been planning on getting a nicer one when it dies... but it just keeps on chugging. I'm on my fourth set of ear seals (I've used both the bose ones and the ones avcomm makes) but the rest of the headset is working great and the ear seals are still lasting a long time. It was fairly quiet in a cessna, although with the turboprops I started just wearing earplugs underneath the headset with the volume turned up louder. This has the added advantage of still letting you hear the airplane (although my reason was just it was cheaper than ANR).
I think this is the model I have, if you enlarge the picture the orange button on the side is the extra PTT. I'm not sure if the price is higher or that's a premium for the carry case (probably a little of both)
http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/AVCOMM-AC-200-PNR-Headset-w-Free-Bag-AC-200V2-New-_W0QQcmdZViewItemQQhashZitem20ba4f5262QQitemZ140564714082QQptZMotorsQ5fAviationQ5fPartsQ5fGearThis one is a bit chepaer:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/HEADSET-AVCOMM-AC-200-PNR-NIB-_W0QQcmdZViewItemQQhashZitem5d2f207cf9QQitemZ400222616825QQptZMotorsQ5fAviationQ5fPartsQ5fGear Bose and DC's are nice headsets, but I have to say I've been very impressed with the reliability of the Avcom. It has been through a lot of hard use. In Alaska it was subjected to regular periods of 40 below or colder just to be warmed back up once we got back into the air. Sometimes it'd be cold soaked for hours and put right to use. The cold weather is probably half the reason I went through as many ear seals as I have. Now they don't get the cold but they get crammed into a tight flight kit sometimes 5 or 6 times a day. Even with all that I'm getting over 1000 hours of use out of a set of ear seals.
When I get my next headset the only thing that might stop me from getting another avcomm (they make a nice anr one now) is getting something that can take up less space since I'll be able to ditch the flight kit once we go to EFBs.
On that note, a popular route is the bose QC2 with the ufly mike conversion. A lot cheaper than the bose aviation headsets and you can remove the conversion at any time to use the headset as a regular headset say on a commercial flight, cutting the grass etc. The original conversion wasn't TSO'd but they do have a TSO'd version now and I periodically fly with people using it and they all seem to love it.
