Headset: Unexpected safety bonus

Bought myself a new headset for Christmas. I expected it to just be a new
toy, but I was amazed at the increase in understandability. Lets face it, like
many pilots looking retirement age in the eye, my hearing ain't what it used to
be. Previously, when I got into a plane, I would automatically turn the volume
well north of 50% just so I could hear above the din. I had come to assume
that the mush-mouth barely-understandable audio I was getting was just part of
the normal deal for those AM aviation radios.

For the budget I had in mind (between .3 and .4 AMU) I could get a pretty
fair conventional headset or a bottom-of-the-line ANR unit. For better or
worse, I went for the ANR, (the Lightspeed R20XL). To my surprise, and for the
first time in ages, I could suddenly hear and (more importantly) understand
every word that was being spoken. Further, I noticed that I was running my
volume control in a more normal position, (perhaps 10 db lower than before)
because there was so much less background noise to overcome.

If you find yourself saying "say again?" often, perhaps it is time to open
up the wallet and invest. There is no longer any valid reason to be flying
without ANR.

Vaughn



--
Will poofread for food.