Ebay for new headsets??

In rec.aviation.owning Thomas Borchert wrote:

: By a pilot-shop-branded derivative of the LightSPEED QFR XCc, as
: available at avshop.com, Gulfcoast Avionics and others. At about 250 $,
: that's your best bet, really.

: You won't get the best ANR, however, and my personal opinion is that it
: is not smart to cut corner in buying headsets. It's easily the most
: important piece of pilot equipment. So, get a decent ANR headset, e.g.
: the Lightspeed 20XLc. Why the bias on Lightspeed? They simply offer the
: best value.

My experience has been that the Lightspeed XC is a "better" headset than the 15/20/25's. The reason? MUCH
better passive. The "higher-end" Lightspeeds have a definate wow-factor with the ANR, but it's at the expense of
higher frequencies. I found some data on the 'net that these have some spillover in the 1-2kHz range, so they
actually *amplify* the noise in those frequencies. Of course that's after the passives, but still.... and I'm
particularly sensitive to those frequencies. I much prefer the excellant passive and moderate active (in the low
frequencies) on the X-Country.

-Cory

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************************************************** ***********************
* Cory Papenfuss *
* Electrical Engineering candidate Ph.D. graduate student *
* Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University *
************************************************** ***********************

I much prefer the excellant passive and moderate active (in the low
frequencies) on the X-Country.


I know what you mean. It's a personal thing.

--
Thomas Borchert (EDDH)

Here is another thought...

I wear DC 10-40, a friend wears Lightspeed 20-something.
When instrument flying, I can hear the identifier through the background
noise while my friend cannot. Why? Better headset? Better hearing? Both?

While I am happy with my DC ANR's, having recently had to pay $67 for a
repair on an older (beyond 5 year warranty passives) (I bought after
hearing about legendary customer service) set, I will probably go with
Litespeed for my next purchase.

Sorry, had to rant.


In john smith wrote:
Here is another thought...

I wear DC 10-40, a friend wears Lightspeed 20-something.
When instrument flying, I can hear the identifier through the
background noise while my friend cannot. Why? Better headset? Better
hearing? Both?

I purchased a brand new Lightspeed 30-3G headset at OSH.
Used it for 4 hrs on one cross country trip and had to return it to Lightspeed
(at my expense) for repair. The ANR just quit working, the next time I wanted to
use them (yes the batteries were fresh). They repaired the ANR and turned it
around quick enough (received back 2 business days after they received it) at no
charge. It still bugs me that I had to pay to ship them back. While my DC
passive headset was still fine and survived all my PP training abuse.

So..... Just had to rant as well.

Kevin Kubiak - PP-ASEL

Jonathan Sorger wrote:
While I am happy with my DC ANR's, having recently had to pay $67 for a
repair on an older (beyond 5 year warranty passives) (I bought after
hearing about legendary customer service) set, I will probably go with
Litespeed for my next purchase.

Sorry, had to rant.


In john smith wrote:

Here is another thought...

I wear DC 10-40, a friend wears Lightspeed 20-something.
When instrument flying, I can hear the identifier through the
background noise while my friend cannot. Why? Better headset? Better
hearing? Both?

: I wear DC 10-40, a friend wears Lightspeed 20-something.
: When instrument flying, I can hear the identifier through the background
: noise while my friend cannot. Why? Better headset? Better hearing? Both?

That has also been my experience with the Lightspeed [12][05]'s. My theory is that the 1-2kHz regions where
they're particularly bad at noise reduction is also the most important one for speech intelligibility. The ident on
navaids is 1kHz, too. Basically, I've found that the volume (intercom/radio) for them needs to be so low to not be
painful, that even though they cut out lots of apparent engine noise, it's still very difficult to understand
radios/intercom.

I've also got a friend with an experimental sea-plane with a Rotax 912S in it. I think that cruise RPM is
about 4000-4500, so it really has lots of high frequency. He and I took my Lightspeed XC's up and compared them with
his 25XLs. The 25XLs were basically unintelligible (and painful to me)... the next day he ordered two XC2's (newer
model). To each their own, though.

-Cory

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************************************************** ***********************
* Cory Papenfuss *
* Electrical Engineering candidate Ph.D. graduate student *
* Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University *
************************************************** ***********************