I'm loving my lightspeed zulus
I feel as if I have nothing on my head
when I come up to scratch my face and I touch my mic I'm like "oh yeah.. I have a headset on.."

+ the Auxiliary input + bluetooth is cool (although the Bluetooth is kind of useless)

 

Bluetooth is epic . Flying around in the Cessna talking on the cell etc.
Or you can use it for wireless music in the same sense as you use the aux port.

 

I wore a lightspeed for one leg. Junk. Telex 850 is hands down the best choice.

 

We have a lot of threads on headsets here. To access the previous 37 threads, put the brand name of the set your are interested in buying in the search window at the upper left.

 

wow
what made it junk?

 

It had a built in background static. If I wear my Bose and the other pilot wears Lightspeeds its not as bad. If I wear the telex its worse. Two Texex together in the plane and no noise. Two Bose together No noise , throw in a lightspeed and its a constant background noise.

 

hmm.. everyone that I flew with my lightspeed so far has commented on how clearly and well they can hear me

 

I recommend Zulus, works great and lasts a long time for me the last several years. I do notice from time to time a little static on the line. But it is rare and it comes and goes, even on the same airplane. I thought it might have more to do with the airplane than with the headset. I suspect you have a bad combination of equipment to cause that much noise, although it is certainly possible that Zulus are not as resistant to spurious electronic signals. By that I mean spurious signals, not ambient noise. Zulu is an effective ANR system which is why I use it the last few years. Far from being junk, they are a quality item on par with Bose and maybe even better in terms of the manufacturing materials. Lots of leather, magnesium, good quality rubber and stainless steel. The two ANR mics are under each of the earcup forks.

 

Yeah, 850 for turbojets. Light, compact and NO BATTERIES! Just enough ANR to make things comfortable, but will not create "ear ringing" silence if that's what you're looking for.

But you would want an over-the-ear set for anything with props.

 

I've had a DC headset for 20 years. Far longer than my first wife stuck around

As for the question of what headset in a jet, it depends on what jet you fly. The DC-8's used a in the ear bud to listen and you used the hand mike (yes, it was legal per the type cert.). The DC-10 and MD-11 don't have a hot mike, so we use the Telex ear bud/boom mike below 18k. We have some guys that bring ANR headsets, but it causes communication issues without an intercom. Our B747 guys complain about the noise, but they have the same issue about not having an intercom.