Magnet Posted August 13, 2010 Report Share Posted August 13, 2010 I purchased a Lightspeed Zulu at Oshkosh to replace my Bose X. I'm not really sure that I'm that thrilled with the results. It's probably to soon to tell but I wonder if anyone has any experience yet with the new Bose A20 and is it worth the extra $250. It saeems that I get better noise reduction on the passenger side than I do on the pilot side if that's possible. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Patrnflyr Posted August 21, 2010 Report Share Posted August 21, 2010 I'd like to know also. They're talking about a 20% gain in efficiency from the X's which is substantial. I'm one of the few CTer's who love my Bose and will probably upgrade in the future. Many people had mentioned that they offered a "trade in" program for earlier Bose headsets at Oshkosh. I emailed them last week and the answer from them with me taking a few liberties was, "are you crazy, we're barely keeping up with demand now and we don't plan on having a trade in program in the future..." Oh well, we'll see. John Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Adam Posted November 9, 2010 Report Share Posted November 9, 2010 Hi Arnold... I started with the Telex Stratus 50D's on Lemo Plugs in my CT. They worked ok but I find the Telex to be heavy and bulky. I bought one Bose X and one Light Speed Zulu and played with both. The Bose were good, but the BlueTooth on the Zulu won me over so I sold the Bose X and bought a second Zulu. When the A20 came out I bought 2 at Oshkosh. Hands down the A20 is the best headset I have experienced. My only knock is that the A20's Bluetooth only works with the phone, for whatever reason it will not work with music so if you own an iPhone as I do, you use Bluetooth for a call, but you still have to use a cable to get the iPod part to work. For me no big deal, I don't listen to music much, too busy flying to worry about music but I know for some thats a big deal. The A20 is comfy, has excellent noise reduction and in my humble opinion outperforms the Zulu (which I used in side by side competition). The good news was I sold the Zulu's and the Bose X on ebay for damn near what I paid which made the trial and evaluation part not that expensive. The A20's cost an arm and a leg, but they are the best performers. I rate A20 best, Zulu second, Bose X third and Telex Stratus last. Hope my experience helps! Adam N531CT. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
S3flyer Posted November 9, 2010 Report Share Posted November 9, 2010 We all like our toys and acceptable noise level is subjective. ANR is certainly on the forefront of noise reduction but, of course, the algorthm employed needs to match the noise in your particular cabin or it has minimal effect. Lightspeed doesn't appear to make a passive set anymore. Too bad -- I've gone low-tech on headsets with a pair of LightSpeed Solo/c which have a passive attenuation of ~30db. This pales in comparison to the Bose and Zulu but at what cost? Keep in mind our Rotax puts out about 79db of noise (pulled this from the certification database in Europe for a Rotax powered DA20). Throw another 5db on top for the extra 20 horses of our ULS. This will attenuate a bit by the time it gets in the cabin. Call it 80db (max) when it hits your unshield ears. Attenuate with my passive set and I'm down to around 50db. Take a look at the chart for comparison: http://www.industria...se-examples.htm. My cabin is now a 'quiet suburb' which works for me -- and I don't need batteries (and I've saved a couple grand). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sandpiper Posted November 10, 2010 Report Share Posted November 10, 2010 As I've said before, I love my Stratus 50D's with the Lemo connectors so I can use ships power. I like that they have the excellent passive protection as well as active. I don't know how the new Bose compare because I haven't tried them and at the going price I probably won't. I know my 50D's are a lot better than the last generation Bose that I had and the bulk of the 50D's doesn't seem to bother me. Maybe that's because I wore a helmet for many years flying the Huey. Now that could get uncomfortable! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wlfpckrs Posted November 10, 2010 Report Share Posted November 10, 2010 I'll take my less-expensive Lightspeed QFR Xcc sets any day. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CT4ME Posted November 10, 2010 Report Share Posted November 10, 2010 'gotta say my humble Dave Clark's work great for me. I've tried 4 or 5 of the top-of-the-line units as my buddy buys them...... but the DCs always sound better. I even passed on a nicely priced new Bose ($300), as they just didn't measure up. Go Figger. I'm guessing the high $$ ones would sound better if I took the time to "tune" them to the radio. Tim Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DocRon Posted February 12, 2012 Report Share Posted February 12, 2012 Gentlemen, Any opinions as to the best passive headsets on the market today? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
S3flyer Posted February 12, 2012 Report Share Posted February 12, 2012 I had the David Clark 13.4s for years and was very satisfied with them. Much better than the Flightcom 4/5 series as far as comfort on longer flights. The Lightspeed QFR Solo/c beat all of them in comfort and noise reduction. As I said above, Lightspeed doesn't market passive headsets anymore but there is a clone of the Solo/c available at Gulf Coast Avionics, GCA-9T, which actually was rated higher than the Lightspeed in an Aviation Consumer review a few years back. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ian Posted February 13, 2012 Report Share Posted February 13, 2012 I've had the David Clark H10-20 for years (since about 1990!) and stil find them great - last year I had the HeadsetsInc Conversion done to add ANR functionality and I'm really pleased with it - works fine for me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mick Posted February 13, 2012 Report Share Posted February 13, 2012 Wait till you'r in your eighty's like me and your high freq ability has degraded then the David Clarks are just great. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DocRon Posted February 17, 2012 Report Share Posted February 17, 2012 Wait till you'r in your eighty's like me and your high freq ability has degraded then the David Clarks are just great. Right. I had my high frequencies blown out in Vietnam so I'm there too, just 20 years earlier. I just received the Dave Clark H10-13S in the mail yesterday. I'll try it out later this morning. Hopefully, it will be the improvement I'm looking for (and without spending $1000 to get it.) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DocRon Posted February 19, 2012 Report Share Posted February 19, 2012 Gentlemen! There is a new problem that I'd very like your input on. I purchased a pair of Dave Clark H10-13S headphones to replace my AVCOM AC-800S. The AC-800S works fine but is noisy. The DCs have a bit of a problem that I can't figure out. When I fly alone I keep the Intercom switched off. With the AC-800S that was not a problem, I could hear radio traffic in both ears. Now I've tried the DCs (wearing them with the boom mike on the right side) and only hear traffic through both earpieces when the intercom in ON. With the intercom OFF I only hear radio traffic through the right earpiece. Just went to the airport and tried both headsets again. Same results, so there would not appear to be anything wrong with the aircraft's headset plug-in-to-radio circuitry. So, is there a defect with the DCs or am I missing something? I've reset the volume dials and radio volume in every way I can think of. Sure would appreciate an opinion on this if you have any ideas. Thanks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Roger Lee Posted February 19, 2012 Report Share Posted February 19, 2012 Hi Ron, That may be more a function of the headset rather than the intercom. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DocRon Posted February 19, 2012 Report Share Posted February 19, 2012 Hi Ron, That may be more a function of the headset rather than the intercom. HI Roger, Have you ever wished you could go back and just erase an entire entry? Not just edit--erase. This is probably one of those times. Where the cord goes out of the headphones and comes to a junction, the two cords with separate jacks come out. Within that little junction, on its side, is a small indentation about 3mm by 5mm in size with no labeling. If I stick a very fine pointed knife in this area and put downward pressure on a nearly invisible switch, it changes everything so that I can receive sound through both headphones (at least when hooked up to a small handheld VHF tranceiver). I'll try it on the plane tomorrow. The thing is, I've re-read the instruction sheet and the exploded parts diagram. This little thing is not mentioned at all. (I'm going to have to have a talk with those folks at DC.) Thanks for the advice. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Roger Lee Posted February 20, 2012 Report Share Posted February 20, 2012 That's the mono / stereo switch. One ear or both. It's a live and learn world. I learn everyday so join the club. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DocRon Posted February 20, 2012 Report Share Posted February 20, 2012 That's the mono / stereo switch. One ear or both. It's a live and learn world. I learn everyday so join the club. Yeah, I know...but sometimes I wish it wasn't in front of 400+ members. Yes, I have much to learn but really enjoy the process. And, this is a great place to do it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Flying C Farms Posted February 24, 2012 Report Share Posted February 24, 2012 Yeah, I know...but sometimes I wish it wasn't in front of 400+ members. Yes, I have much to learn but really enjoy the process. And, this is a great place to do it. Now that I am getting older and dumber, it's nice too see I am not alone. I even ask directions now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DocRon Posted February 24, 2012 Report Share Posted February 24, 2012 We decided to by the Dave Clark H10-13S headsets, as I stated earlier. Now that I figured out (with help) the mono/stereo switch, we're very happy with them. The noise reduction is quite good even though they only advertise a -24db drop. I'm particularly satisfied with the microphone. It does a great job of keeping the engine noise to a minimum during transmissions. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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