Another headset question, again..

I use a Denali ANR, and love it. I also have a Peltor passive headset which
I hadn't worn in a long time. Just the other day, I wore the Peltor, and
found it to be surprisingly close to the Denali. In fact, with the ANR off,
the Peltor seemed WAY better than the Denali. The Pelor does have a tighter
grip on the head, but that doesn't seem to bother me too much. I was
considering investing in a Peltor ANR. The trouble is, not many pilotshops
seem to carry Peltor products. I am not sure why. Even the Peltor website
does not have any information about their aviation headsets. Any info on
this would be appreciated.

"Andrew Sarangan" wrote in message
. 158...
[...] The trouble is, not many pilotshops
seem to carry Peltor products. I am not sure why. Even the Peltor website
does not have any information about their aviation headsets. Any info on
this would be appreciated.

Maybe because their first outing into the ANR market wasn't all that good.

I have two Peltor ANR headsets, purchased as a gift for me together, based
on my love for my passive Peltor headsets (which I think are excellent). I
don't hate the ANR headsets, but compared to others on the market, there are
some miscues.

Probably the most serious is that there is sometimes a squeal in the audio.
In fact, one of the headsets is sitting unused, waiting for me to get around
to shipping it back to Peltor, because the squeal became permanent and has
made the headset unusable. Someone get me a round tuit.

I have to assume that the electronics thing is not a constant across all of
the headsets Peltor produced, because if they were all like that, the line
would have died instantly. However, there are still some other things about
the headset that are sort of annoying.

One is that the battery is contained inside one of the earcups. I
originally thought this was a good idea, until I learned that a) it makes
the weight of the headset somewhat lopsided, and b) when the battery is not
in the headset, the passive noise reduction on that side suffers.
Obviously, the latter is solveable just by always leaving a battery in the
headset, but it just seemed silly to me.

Another issue is the switch, though this is an issue shared by many other
makes and models. That is, it has a switch. I think it's silly for a
headset to have a switch that is required to be used in order to avoid
killing the battery. The ANR should have a way to be switched off, of
course, in case it fails or otherwise should not be used, but by default,
the electronics ought to sense whether they are needed or not, and turn
themselves off when not.

There are headsets on the market that do this, and if (when) I buy another
ANR headset, I will only consider those that don't have to be switched
manually.

I honestly don't know anything about the current Peltor model. From the
pictures I've seen, it looks like it might have been changed a little, but I
don't know if it's been changed to fix the issues I have with it.

Now, all of the above aside, the audio quality of the ANR Peltors is
*excellent*, even better than the passive headsets I already owned, and they
were pretty good too. Passive reduction on the ANR headsets isn't as good
as on my non-ANR Peltor headsets, but it's pretty close. I love how the
Peltors fold up, and they are one of the most comfortable headsets I've worn
(though this is very fit dependent...they may not fit differently shaped or
sized heads as well, I don't know).

If you've already worn the Peltor ANR headset and like it, I think that
ought to be recommendation enough. It's not a *bad* headset, it's just not
as good as I think it ought to be, coming from a company like Peltor.

By the way, when I bought my Peltor passive headsets, I believe that
Sennheiser was actually the company that manufactured their products.
Perhaps they still are. In any case, Sennheiser now sells their own ANR
headset, with similar usability features to the Peltor (like the way it
folds), but with what appears to me to be better solutions to issues I found
with the Peltors.

Hope that helps.

Pete

Andrew Sarangan wrote:

Any info on this would be appreciated.

If you like Peltor, you'll love Sennheiser.

George Patterson
If you want to know God's opinion of money, just look at the people
he gives it to.

Ham DX'rs don't operate with engines at 2500 rpm on the backside of their
rigs.
Most important in aviation is speech intelligibility with noise. I think
aviation haedsets need not only ANR but compression, as well.




"R. David Steele" /OMEGA wrote in message
...
On 10 Sep 2004 01:50:13 GMT, Andrew Sarangan
wrote:

|
|
|I use a Denali ANR, and love it. I also have a Peltor passive headset
which
|I hadn't worn in a long time. Just the other day, I wore the Peltor, and
|found it to be surprisingly close to the Denali. In fact, with the ANR
off,
|the Peltor seemed WAY better than the Denali. The Pelor does have a
tighter
|grip on the head, but that doesn't seem to bother me too much. I was
|considering investing in a Peltor ANR. The trouble is, not many
pilotshops
|seem to carry Peltor products. I am not sure why. Even the Peltor website
|does not have any information about their aviation headsets. Any info on
|this would be appreciated.
|
|

Keep Heil Sound in mind. They are making their first ventures
into aviation headsets. Their primary business has been
communication mikes and headsets plus commerical (ie broadcast
and bands) mikes. http://www.heilsound.com/


Their Pro Quiet Sound headset is going to be a top ranked ANR
http://www.heilsound.com/pro_set_quiet_phone.htm
It is priced for $225. The only problem is that they terminate
their mikes with a minature plug (3.5mm) then use adapters for
whatever radio they are linking to. One could just replace the
3.5mm plug with a .206" plug (ie Switchcraft 480 or 484, with hot
on the ring and gnd on the sleave) or make an adapter with a
3.5mm inline jack to .206" plug.

Frankly Bob Heil might have a far better headset than Bose. Go
through his web site. He started with the Who. The Eagles are
using his mikes.

Try the HC-4 mike element. It has a narrower range which punches
through noise better (500 Hz to 3,800 Hz with 10 dB rise at 2,000
Hz). The HC-5 has a wider range, 350 Hz to 4,000 Hz with 6 dB
rise at 2,000 Hz, which sounds more normal. How many headset
makers offer a selection of mike elements? BTW, he does have an
element just for ICOM radios (low audio).


"If ye love wealth better than liberty ... servitude better than ...
freedom,
go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsel or your arms ... May
your
chains set lightly upon you. May posterity forget that ye were our
countrymen."
- Samuel Adams