Headsets - Health
 

I've been using conventional DC headsets for years and I'm about to invest in a noise cancelling type. Some people are telling me that noise cancelling headsets are worse for your long term hearing than conventional ones. Can anyone out there verify that?

Also any bad experiences with the Lightspeed noise cancelling headset?

You're probably only hearing that from people who don't have a noise cancelling headset.

WHAAAT?
pass me my Altronics, I'm off for a fly in the bongo.:}

Nothing as far as I'm aware except for an uncomfortable sting on the credit card statement.

Haha too true. Their customer service is also excellent.

Don't waste your money just buy the thickest gel seals you can for your standard David Clark and always wear eag plugs under your headsets. You can either get custom moulded ones or the standard throw away orange ones you see at mining camps. I did this for about 4000 hours out of 5000 on turboprops and pistons and when I did an audiology exam the audiologist was blown away by how good my hearing was. So much so she got her colleague in to look at my results as they were so good. I had very little hearing loss at all.

All that cost me was a standard basic headset and two sets of gel seals. Work should provide the throw away ear plugs. The custom made ear plugs can be done by most audiologists.

Been told the same thing (ANR only gives the impression of increased protection) before I got my ANR headset a while ago. I accepted this until I really thought about it - what allows ANR to reduce noise is an out-of-phase waveform being "added" to the original waveform - so the resultant amplitude of the wave hitting the eardrum is greatly reduced. We know this works, as the headsets are very quiet. So if the amplitude of the wave is greatly reduced, then this provides "actual" protection, as it's loud (i.e. high amplitude) sound that causes hearing damage.

I've also seen ANR described on some US aviation medical sites as an "expensive but effective" form of protection.

The new kid on the block.
 

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4110/...8eb4d9b0ef.jpg



A20 Aviation Headset

Geez, I wonder what they said about them in the 3,000,000 other headset threads? :*