I agree with the Ets for plane travel. They reduce the noise dramatically. I use them with a headroom airhead amp and a PBJ100 jukebox. This is an MP3 player with either a 6.4 or 20 gig hard disk. Even at low compression rates (which is what I use for better sound quality) it stores a huge amount of music (70 hours on the 6.4 gig version at 192 Kbits/sec). As for playing music in the hotel room I recently bought a pair of the NSX technology speakers on the MP3direct.com website. They were only $89 with the amp, so I figured, why not. How do they sound--like $89. No miracles here. For background music they are adequate. They are better than the speakers in my laptop. They can not play very load (background levels only). They have no response below about 200Hz. They are very compact (about the size of 2 CD cases). So if you just want some mellow background music while you read or work--this may be fine for you--but don't expect audiophile quality for the road with these.
When Traveling, Best Way to Hear CDs...
When you travel, what do you carry with you to listen to CDs in your hotel room? Are there any new, portable devices that have decent sound. Just trying to take care of my listening habits when I am traveling on business...prefer something that doesn't need headphones.