What it seems like some do is they cruise at altitude until pretty close to the end and then they throttle-back and let the plane loose altitude as they approach the destination airport.
Other pilots start their descent from further out. They keep the engines on roughly cruising power (based on the sound) and the descent is more gradual in terms of lost altitude (based on ear-pressure) and the air-speed is kept high.
To me, the second method seems better. They are using altitude gained at great expense in the start of the trip to get something back: Speed at the end of the trip.
It could be deceptive though. The sound of the wind rushing past the fuselage makes me think we are going faster on the high speed descent. But the air is thicker as you descend, so that could be the source of the added sound. It is easy to think of ways of testing which method is superior: Just set the engines to burn at the same rate and fly both profiles. If they use the same fuel, but one gets there faster, then it is a better method.
I haven't kept good (or any) records, but anecdotaly it seems as if the high speed approach is used more when the flight is running late and the slow approach when the flight is ahead of schedule.
Hmmm?
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