Headset Recommendation
 

Hi,

I was looking to acquire a private pilot cert, and a guy I work with advised me to pick up a headset, said it would be a good investment. He recommended a Light Speed headset, and said to get ANR. My only reservation is that Light Speed is a little more pricey.

I'm sure Light Speed makes very good headsets, but I was wondering if you guys thought they are worth the money? I'd spend the money without it being a problem, I was just wondering what you guys use/prefer.

David-Clark 13.4 A good headset, comfortable and not too terribly priced. Green just looks cool too:D

Go to Google Groups and search in rec.aviation.piloting for the word "headset". You'll have more reading that you can possibly stand.

My overpriced .02: I would start off with a cheap set for your PP-ASEL training until you're pretty sure you're going to stick with it for a while. Then get yourself a good ANR set to as a reward for finishing your Private or Instrument. I was between the Lightspeed and the Flightcom Denali, and ended up getting the Denali. Not quite the same level of noise reduction as the Lightspeed, but still good and it's lightweight and very comfortable. Now the cheap set makes a great passenger set.

Of course, YMMV.

Over this past summer I bought a pair of the Lightspeed 30 3G's and can't stand anything else now. ANR definitely helps reduce noise, you won't be displeased. They also have really great customer service from what I hear; I've been told they will replace parts no questions asked plus include extras at their expense.

I've always been a fan of my trusty David Clarks. Comfortable and quiet enough that I've never thought of buying a ANR set. Plus, guys I flew with at the Regionals were always replacing the batteries in the ANR's; too much hassle. Now at work I wear Telex or Plantronics. I have one of each. I'm not sure if they make any GA headsets; however, I have used my Telex with earplugs in a Bonanza and it worked just fine.
DC's have great customer service also. If you run em over just send the parts to them and they'll send you a new pair.
Overall, I've always viewed David Clarks as a status symbol for pilots. There's something sublimely cool about DC's. Not overstated or too technical but just good comfortable and sturdy.

I am also looking to get a new headset. I have had my DC's for about 6 years now and they are showing their age. I am probably going to receive a new pair as a graduation present, so I can pick any pair I want.

I was considering the Bose. I have tried them on, and they are quite comfy. I was wondering if anyone flying a turboprop or RJ uses Bose and what you think of them.

Good thing about DCs are anything goes wrong, all you got to do is send them to Wooster, MA and they will fix it for free

I would say go BOSE if you have the money. The company I flew for for a short time supplied them, and they are the best I have used. But if you can't afford noise canceling headsets, like me, go David Clark 13.4's. They are the BEST bang for the buck.

D

Don't get the Lightspeed 20-3G's
 

I have had Lightspeed 20-3g's for about 6 months now. They are comfortable and the ANR is pretty good, but they have almost no passive noise reduction at all. That means that when your battery runs out, it is very loud, so loud that it is difficult to understand radio communications.
Also, everybody I know who has them has had to return them because they broke for one reason or another. Granted, they were repaired free of charge and the customer service is very good. I had to send mine in for repair after the second time I used them because the stereo/mono switch broke.

My parents just bought me a pair of BOSE as my graduation present :) .

KA,

That's what I am getting for my graduation present when I graduate in the Spring:)

Lucky snots. Congradulations on the graduation (assume you got your BS?).

For some reason, ANR headsets give me a headache so I'll stick with my trusty DC 13.4s

Yep, got the 'ol Bachelor's Degree

Nice, well done!

($995 / 12) on your credit or debit card each month, effectively a no-interest loan, to get a shiny new Bose Aviation X. Best headset you'll find anywhere.


(That's $82.92 if you don't have your calculator handy. :) )

I hope no one takes this advice! You will never see them again.

Wooster is in Ohio. Worcester . . is in Taxachusetts . . the County Seat. There’s an airport there, so this is important.

Here is everything you ever wanted to know about “Wuss-tah”, Mass.

Sure people from Worcester talk funny. People from Mississippi talk funny. So do Minnesotans, Oregonians and New Yorkers. Especially New Yorkers. The bigger question is why does Worcester have a lake, a village, college and an avenue named Quinsigamond, but they're scattered around the city like leaves in the fall?

No, it doesn't make sense unless you know that the community was called Quinsigamond long before it was called Worcester. It's an Indian word that means: "Boy, do these folks talk strange." If you're a newcomer and you find the local language throws you for a loop, we've assembled a handy guide. Before we get to that, let's start with how not to pronounce Worcester.

Don't make it three syllables. Just forget that first E is even there. And never, never, never put an H in the middle of Worcester. People will make fun of you. So, how do you correctly pronounce Worcester to make people think you've been shopping at Spag's on Saturdays and going to Water Street on Sunday mornings your whole life?

You've dropped the first E and boiled it down to two syllables. Now eliminate both R's. While you're at it, better get that C out of there. Make the remaining sort of an AH and turn the O into a U. Wuss-tah. It doesn't rhyme with sister or rooster. The first syllable rhymes with puss. Go ahead and say it. Wuss-tah. Now you're almost ready to walk into a spa in the village and order a regular coffee and maybe a couple of tonics and a grinder or club. One more thing. Always include your state as part of your hometown, as in: "I'm from Wusstahmass." Confused? The following guide to the peculiarities of the Central MA dialect should help:

Boston Turnpike - Route 9 east of Worcester

Bubblah - Water fountain

Candlepin Bowlin' - Invented in Worcester in 1880 by Justin P. White, and a far superior game to Ten Pin, a form of bowling known locally simply as "big balls."

Cellah - Basement

Club sandwich - Italian sub

Dine-ah - Good food cheap, but it's only a diner if it was made by Worcester Lunch Car Co.

Dinnah - Lunch

Elastic - Rubber band

Frappe - Ice cream, milk and flavored syrup. (A milkshake leaves out the ice cream.)

Grindah - Sub sandwich

Jimmies - Chocolate sprinkles

The Lake - Quinsigamond

Package Store - Place to buy beer and liquor Packy - Shorthand for package store

Parlor - Living room

Piazza - Porch

Pricker, Pricker Bush - A burr or other vegetation that grows on a bush and sticks to your clothing. Some use the same word for any bush with thorns.

The Pike - The Mass. Pike

Regular coffee - Fully caffeinated with cream and sugar.

Spa - A corner store with soda fountain

Square - All rotaries are squares, but not all squares are rotaries

Three-deckah - Not a sandwich, but a house with three floors, big apartments, hundreds of stairs and nowhere close to enough parking.

Tonic - Soda (of any flavor or brand)

Wormtown - Slang for Worcester

How to say it:
Auburn - AW-bin
Aunt - AHnt
Berlin - BURL-in
Clinton - Klint'n
Ha'past - 30 minutes after the hour, as in: "we're gonna eat lunch at ha'past 12"

Lake Chargoggagoggmanchaugagoggchaubunagungamaugg- Wep-stah Lake

Leicester - Less-tah

Leominster - Lemon-stah

Millbury - Mill-bree

New York - NooYawk (Rhymes with talk)

Northboro - Nohth-bro (also, West-bro, South-bro and Marl-bro)

Petersham - Peters-am

Pizza - Pete-zer

Shrewsbury - SHOES-bree

Southbridge - Sowt-bridge

Tatnuck - Tatnick

Westminster - West-minstah

Lightspeeds are awesome. I love mine.

Get ANR
 

If I can give you one piece of advice, it will be to get the ANR. Definately worth every last penny. You can by a midrange headset for $150, or a good ANR headset for $350-400. If you plan to be flying for several years to come, ANR's will wind up costing you like $1 more a flight. It is so worth it.

If you are unsure, take a flight with a cheap $100 headset, and then fly the next flight with the ANR. You will never go back to passive headsets.

As far as brand, I have heard good things about Lightspeed. When I bought by ANR, it was between Pilot and Lightspeed. If you want some info on Pilot, they are real good headsets. As far as Bose, I would not recommend paying $1000 for them. Just not worth it. When did my CFI last summer, I borrowed a pair of Bose from someone for 2 weeks. Then I flew after that with my normal ANR's, and there is no difference.


Be sure and get the ANR's!

Has anyone ever tried these

http://www.lightspeedaviation.com/products-Mach1.asp

or these?

http://www.lightspeedaviation.com/productsL1.asp

It seems to me that if they work as advertised, they should be nothing short of revolutionary. Why would ANYONE go back to big, uncomfortable, restrictive, not to mention goofy-looking, ear muff type headsets?

I don't know about the big, uncomfortable, restrictive, goofy-looking parts - - Bose Aviation X headsets are none of the above - - but I'll use ear muff type headsets in high noise environments because much low-range damage can occur by exposure of the external structure of the ear canal and surrounding bones to noise. Simply "plugging" the ear canal does not completely solve the problem. The Bose headset offers protection for a larger area around the ear, as well as the ear canal itself.

Bose are lightweight, extremely comfortable, and very effective at cancelling noise. You will hear radio transmissions more clearly, hear voices in the cockpit more clearly, protect your hearing, and reduce the fatigue you'd otherwise suffer without the headset.

$82.72 per month for 12 months is a tiny price to pay for the lifetime benefit you will gain. Remember, hearing loss is irreversible, and cumulative.





- The truth only hurts if it should -

Yeah...I guess that makes sense. Low freqs can't be stopped by simple ear plugs from entering your ear canal via the surrounding tissue.

If it has props, ANR is a good idea.

Just to add to the in ear debate, where do you store these things when not in use, or when jumping from aircraft to aircraft? The in ear thing is a waxy dirt magnet waiting to happen and it doesn't look too durable. I knock my DCs around pretty good and they've held up for 5 years. I don't think I'd stick those things in my ear.

I'd be glad to throw in my $0.02 here. I have owned/used many headseats, as I'm sure many of you have. Let me just state, for the record, that we are big fans of quality and will stretch our budget to accommodate that taste. We'll skimp and save to get 'the good stuff.' Musically, we run a full set of Cerwin Vegas at home and take great pleasure in our California made system.

I used a pair of FlightCom's for my entire PPL training. I don't recall the model, but I borrowed them a friend, new. They were midgrade, comfortable, heavy, had good quality and I know he didn't pay a lot for them. There was no ANR and they had no bells and whistles.

I frequently used my husband's (boyfriend then) LightSpeed 25xl set. The weight, feel, ANR and quality was phenomenal. I LOVED them. However, as a small woman, I found that they slipped forward when I looked down at charts or similar. My husband never had this problem and I've never heard of other folks with it. I'm just weird, I guess. When the earcup stirrup broke, out of warranty, LS sent out a replacement sooo fast, your head would spin....free of charge.

When I completed my instrument, I decided to get LightSpeed's brand-spankin' new QFR Cross Country set. They were in my budget and seemed promising. They are so unbelievably comfy, light and quiet, it doesn't seem possible for them to be that inexpensive. My QFR XCs are now nearly 7 years old and suffer no wear, no degraded performance or other complaints. They get used regularly, abused occasionally and just keep putting up with my crap.

Then, my husband used mine a few times. He found that the very thin skull-top strap was a killer feature for his tall stature and short cockpits. He stopped hitting his head constantly when he used my headset. Several years after he bought his 25xl, he sold it for a great price and went with another pair of QFR XCs for himself.

When he took his first corporate gig, we flew together in a Chieftain. In the cockpit we put yet two more QFR XCs. For the passengers' DVDs and music, they got QFR Solos (non-ANR). We got frequent compliments on the choice we made.

I have used Bose headsets on several occasions, including a few long trips. I am completely unimpressed. Sure, they sound good. Better enough to justify the difference in price? I just don't hear it. I, again as a woman with a 'small' head, don't find them to be comfortable either. The spring joint at the top pinches the crap out of my head. Not direcly pinching my skin, just a squeezing the life out of you after a while feeling. I despise the things, honestly. If you buy them and they make your day brighter, wonderful, really! :) But, I just wanted to add the other side of the opinion...I don't personally see any reason to get them.

Anyway, I've also used basic DCs and found them to be similar to the FlightCom's. I used a Denali once, thought it was great, considered buying it back before my QFRs.

For those of us who stay primarily in one or two aircraft, I'm curious about the new LightSpeed L1 and other in-ear devices. How good are they at keeping our hearing intact for old age?

I have a Sennheiser headset, it gets the job done.

Call me old fashioned but if DC's are good enough for the military to buy how many of them then they must be one of the better choices. What I dont like about mine is the ANR never lasts. I used to have lightspeeds and the ANR lasted forever. Plus they only used AA batteries instead of the 9v my DC's used.

My pair of pilot ANR's have a rechargeable battery that lasts 45hrs. Pretty good. Once the charge gets low, I charge them for a few hours just like a cell phone and they are fully charged. Plus the battery is contained within the headset which means you don't have the annoying battery pack swinging around like in the Bose.

Like I said earlier, ANR is the way to go.

Ryane,

I know what you mean about the swinging box. It's a little irritating. Doesn't that internal battery make the headset awfully heavy, though?

Mine is either 14, 15, or 16 ounces (not sure). The Bose weigh 12 ounces, and there is really no difference. The two headsets I have used the most are Bose and Pilot, and 3 ounces just does not make a difference. Sure it will make it slightly heavier, but not noticably.

It is worth the tradeoff to have:
1. a rechargeable battery
2. no annoying swinging battery pack
for the extra weight which is unnoticable.

B O S E. Its really the only way to go. Worth every dollar. Check out ebay and look at the helicopter headset. You can have it modified by bose for about 120 bucks for an airplane, and youll save tons of money

For jets, my recommendation would be the Bose.

Def. Bose no other head set even compares they are worth ever cent of 999.99

Punk Pilot you have always been ole fashioned LOL