LAS VEGAS – Bluetooth headset vendors at this year's Consumer Electronics Show are looking for more music and less noise, with advanced noise cancellation and new form factors for mobile music headsets.

Plantronics and BlueAnt have used this year's CES 2007 to stake out two different sides of the next-generation noise cancellation debate. BlueAnt's new Z9 earclip headset ($119.99) has two microphones, one facing out, one facing in. Both microphones feed into a DSP (digital signal processing) chip, which adjusts audio gain to compensate for external noise.

Plantronics, on the other hand, has gone for one microphone and some fancy software on its latest Discovery 655 and 665 headsets ($149.95). The two headsets use a new algorithm called AudioIQ, which alters both incoming and outgoing sound adapting not only to background noise, but also to the quality of the incoming call.

For instance, if you get a call from someone at the end of a long, rural telephone loop, the high frequencies of the call may be missing, said Steve Graham, Principal Engineer at Plantronics. AudioIQ adds the missing frequencies back in and levels out volumes so calls to landlines, mobile phones and speakerphones all sound much more similar than they would otherwise.

AudioIQ also only turns up parts of the spectrum that are needed at the moment – adapting differently to the chatter of a busy party than to the rumble of a car engine, for instance.

"The algorithm has a lot of complexity in terms of how it does the dynamics processing on each individual band," Graham said.

The 655 and 665 have slightly different visual designs, and the 665 comes with a car charger, but they both use AudioIQ. The new models will be available in early February.

Cardo and BlueAnt are both looking at a different noise problem: the rumble of a motorcycle engine. Cardo's ScalaRider TeamSet and BlueAnt's Interphone both double as bike-to-bike intercoms independently of cell phone use, and they're very similar in terms of features. Both are weatherproof, have noise and wind cancellation, voice activation, and have about seven hours of talk time. Cardo's model is $229.95, and is available now; BlueAnt's is $189.95, and will be available in February.

How about the noise caused by a meeting full of people or a car engine? Parrot and Blueant both have new entrants in the Bluetooth speaker/conference phone market. BlueAnt's Supertooth Light is a cute, cuddly, iPod-black-or-white lower-end version of BlueAnt's existing Supertooth speakerphone that's designed to clip onto a car's sun visor. It has 15 hours of talk time, and will cost $99.99 when it comes out in late March.

Parrot's CONFERENCE speakerphone is a full-scale business conference phone that uses a Bluetooth mobile phone as its phone line, with a bright color display and internal memory for 6,000 contacts. It's big – 22 ounces, and 10 inches in diameter – but it's supposed to sit on a desk. It will cost $299 when it comes out in the second quarter of this year. The smaller MINIKIT, designed for portable and car use much like the Supertooth, weighs only 3.5 ounces and has 10 hours of talk time; it's already out, and costs $124.99.

BlueAnt, Jabra and a small company called Ubixon, meanwhile, are all innovating with designs.

Ubixon's caller ID headset has a unique twist. The Lubix UBHS-LC1 is a pair of earpieces connected by a wire, which stick together with magnets and hang around your neck as a necklace when not in use. In necklace mode, you can read the blue caller ID display, decide whether to pick up the call, and then separate the stereo earpieces and put them in your ears. That's some neat stuff. Ubixon says their headset will be on sale within the first quarter of 2007, but didn't give a price.

A little more conventional but still innovative is Jabra's BT8010 convertible Bluetooth headset. It starts out as a regular mono headset, but then you can hook up a second earpiece with a small wire, to turn it into a stereo Bluetooth headset. It shows caller ID information on a blue OLED screen on the mono unit, as well. It's appearing within the next few months for $149.

BlueAnt's C3 stereo headset's main body is in a shirt clip so it doesn't weigh down your ear; wires then go up to the earbuds. The C3 also has a bright blue OLED display to show caller ID information. It will be available next month for $99.99.

Finally, the BlueAnt V12 is a small Bluetooth earpiece with an LCD caller ID display on the outside. Other headsets from Jabra and Sony Ericsson have attempted this trick, but the headsets have previously ended up with either tiny displays or so heavy they hang off your ear. The $79.99 V12, with a relatively large display, looks like it might hit the sweet spot there. The V12 also has an impressive twelve hours of talk time.