Audio Panels Garmin 340 vs PS7000

[Flyin'Dutch']

Anyone here have personal experience of both and would care to comment on how pleased you were with them?

Have experience with both the Garmin 340 and the latest Bendix/King offering but none with the PS7000.

Any comments eagerly awaited.

FD

[Keef]

No experience, but try phoning Alex Vincent at RGV (Staverton). He gave us some excellent advice when we were thinking about kit upgrades.

[IO540]

I have the PMA7000 (is this the same product?) and while it works well, it suffers from the well documented problem with the auto squelch function in that it cuts off the first second or so of your speech to the passenger(s) unless the cockpit noise level is high enough. So it works well in cruise but even then you've got to have the mike very close to your mouth (bose-x headsets).

PS Engineering refuse to acknowledge the problem... A higher output mike would help but I haven't seen one yet.

Transmissions on the air are not affected.

So I would try it with your headset before fitting it. If you can get it to work acceptably, it is a great intercom which works perfectly with no tweaking whatever. I never tried the music input though!

[Flyin'Dutch']

Thanks guys.

IO540, the reason I was thinking about the PS PMA 7000 was that I was lead to believe that this was less of a problem with this unit than the Garmin set.

Alas it seems not; so Garmin seems the way forward as I like the unit and it seemed to perform well in the variety of aeroplanes that I have come across it.

It's also a lot less expensive.

FD

[A and C]

I have not used the PS7000 but have used the Garmin 340.
The Garmin was OK but only OK ! , I have a PS engineering PM1000 intercom system and heve found nothing better on the market.

I would find it hard to beleave that in the PS 7000 PS engineering have taken a step backward and the PS 7000 is the audio system that I have under consideration for my next upgrade.

It is my understanding that PS engineering build a re-branded PS 7000 for Bendix/king and I would not think that they would risk there reputation on a bit of kit that was not up to the job.

I have had none of the problems that IO540 has had with any of the PS products that I have used dispite using a number of headset types , however I will talk to a number of people that I know in the avionic business and report further if required.

[IO540]

The problem with the PS7000 is that the function which detects the ambient noise level (to implement to auto squelch) does not go "down" low enough so does not work well when the engine is at idle or stopped. Lots of people have commented on it in usenet; PS always seem to reply with the same standard response message and do not reply to emails containing more detail.

Yes this is the same product which Bendix-King badge. I have discussed this with a Bendix-King/Honeywell avionics shop and they confirm the problem is real and well known.

On balance, it does not bother me much; the issue really is one of hygiene - on your own headset it doesn't matter if the mike is almost touching your mouth when on the ground. In all other respects the intercom works great and it is great to get rid of the manual squelch knob.

It is quite possible that some headsets have higher output mikes and don't show this problem, but Bose and D/Clarke both showed it. Bose recently started to offer a modified mike/cable assembly for the aircraft powered version (which does away with the no longer needed bulky battery case) which some claimed has a different mike which helps; I bought two of them and retrofitted them but cannot really see any difference.

[S-Works]

I have a Garmin 340 in my Cessna, I took out the old SPG400 intercom. I have to say I am incredibly impressed with the Garmin. It is a Stereo intercom and we have ours wired upto Stereo jacks with Bose-X headsets and the quality is superb. The intercom is excellent and has seperate pilot and Pax volume and squelch controlls. It is also does automatic headset matching.

The Stereo music input(only when not having any sort of radio service!) with an MP3 player and with the Stereo headsets it sounds great.

It also had functions like split comm where the pilot and "co-pilot" can work the 2 radios at the same time independantly. You can also seperate the intercom from the radio so the passengers cant hear radio comversations. I have my Icom A22 plumbed in as a Comm3 as well. ADF, DME etc are all on there own button as well for ident. Marker indicators and audio also included.

All around it is a great bit of kit. I would post a picture if I could work out how to do it!

[Pete O'Tewbe]

We have the Garmin 340 on our EC120 and TBM 700 and have found it to be a great bit of kit. We are about to fit it to our Gazelle. We use Bose headsets throughout. Checkout www.garmin.com for a piccy of it as well as its technical specification.