Headset
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Headset
Hey guys
I want to get a better round-up for buying a new headset. I know there are many threads dealing with this topic but still I feel some confusion especially when it comes to particular options like talk – through functions etc.
As I will start on the B738 soon, more precisely with RYR, I wonder which headset would be the best for me. I’m really interested in the Sennheiser HMEC 26 because I heard a lot of positive aspects from pilots and forums like pprune. I guess the price for such an ANR, airliner headset is pretty much OK comparing it to the A20 from BOSE for instance.
My uncertainties:
- - I read that some airlines have/have not build in, electric power supply for the Intercom system which allows an ANR powered headset to be used without batteries because it gets the power supply through the microphone power line?! Anyone with experiences on that, maybe with RYR in particular?
- - Talk Through: Is it worth getting the headset version with the talk-through function?
- !! The plug connectors: Did I understand it correctly that the flying computers called Airbus have different connectors like the XLR 5? This means to me that I can use a “normal” 2 way plug connector headset in a 737NG, can’t I?
Looking forward to receiving some helpful ideas and tips from you guys!
I want to get a better round-up for buying a new headset. I know there are many threads dealing with this topic but still I feel some confusion especially when it comes to particular options like talk – through functions etc.
As I will start on the B738 soon, more precisely with RYR, I wonder which headset would be the best for me. I’m really interested in the Sennheiser HMEC 26 because I heard a lot of positive aspects from pilots and forums like pprune. I guess the price for such an ANR, airliner headset is pretty much OK comparing it to the A20 from BOSE for instance.
My uncertainties:
- - I read that some airlines have/have not build in, electric power supply for the Intercom system which allows an ANR powered headset to be used without batteries because it gets the power supply through the microphone power line?! Anyone with experiences on that, maybe with RYR in particular?
- - Talk Through: Is it worth getting the headset version with the talk-through function?
- !! The plug connectors: Did I understand it correctly that the flying computers called Airbus have different connectors like the XLR 5? This means to me that I can use a “normal” 2 way plug connector headset in a 737NG, can’t I?
Looking forward to receiving some helpful ideas and tips from you guys!
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I haven't tried the HMEC 26 personally, but have heard good things about it. All I can say that the very different HMEC 46 is crap, bad noise cancellation and ears get sore very quickly.
I have tried Telex 750 (terrible), Telex 850 (not good), Sennheizer HMEC 46 (not good see above), Clarity Aloft (very light, quite good but it's not for everyone to use a in-ear headset), Bose A20 (best noise cancellation, but high clamp pressure), Bose QC-15/Uflymike (very good), David Clark Pro-X (very good)
I can recommend the Bose QC-15/Uflymike combo. Good noise cancellation, very light and takes half the space of a A20 in your flightbag. Not officially approved no, unless you send to Uflymike to make it TSO approved but a looooot of pilots are using this. Uses 1 AAA battery and lasts about 35-50 hours. Will start blinking 4-5 hours before going dead, downside is that it goes completely dead when the battery dies. But you will notice well in advance. The whole combo costs around $500. And also I recommend the David Clark Pro-X. Good noise cancellation, rather light.
Personally I find the A20 to have way too much clamp pressure (at least for my head shape, yours might be different), quite heavy, takes a lot of space in the flightkit, but undoubtably has the best noise cancellation there is.
Cannot say how the RYR aircrafts are except that they are very much "harlem" versions of the aircraft (1 HF and no SELCAL????). But I know of incidents where some headsets have fried the aircraft's audio box (738) in the ones that do provide power to the headsets. Many newer 738's have the XLR-5 connector (after 2006 I think, but could be just an option)
Personally I have a headset with XLR-5 and an adapter for 2 jacks for those aircrafts. Again I do not know which ones the RYR's have.
My advice to you, don't save money when buying a good headset. A career ahead of you in a noisy 738 flightdeck, I would get a good headset with good noise cancellation. Even though you might have to pay big bucks for it, it will still be worth it. Over time your hearing will degrade with a bad headset, and that cannot be fixed. All you can do, buy a good headset.
I have tried Telex 750 (terrible), Telex 850 (not good), Sennheizer HMEC 46 (not good see above), Clarity Aloft (very light, quite good but it's not for everyone to use a in-ear headset), Bose A20 (best noise cancellation, but high clamp pressure), Bose QC-15/Uflymike (very good), David Clark Pro-X (very good)
I can recommend the Bose QC-15/Uflymike combo. Good noise cancellation, very light and takes half the space of a A20 in your flightbag. Not officially approved no, unless you send to Uflymike to make it TSO approved but a looooot of pilots are using this. Uses 1 AAA battery and lasts about 35-50 hours. Will start blinking 4-5 hours before going dead, downside is that it goes completely dead when the battery dies. But you will notice well in advance. The whole combo costs around $500. And also I recommend the David Clark Pro-X. Good noise cancellation, rather light.
Personally I find the A20 to have way too much clamp pressure (at least for my head shape, yours might be different), quite heavy, takes a lot of space in the flightkit, but undoubtably has the best noise cancellation there is.
Cannot say how the RYR aircrafts are except that they are very much "harlem" versions of the aircraft (1 HF and no SELCAL????). But I know of incidents where some headsets have fried the aircraft's audio box (738) in the ones that do provide power to the headsets. Many newer 738's have the XLR-5 connector (after 2006 I think, but could be just an option)
Personally I have a headset with XLR-5 and an adapter for 2 jacks for those aircrafts. Again I do not know which ones the RYR's have.
My advice to you, don't save money when buying a good headset. A career ahead of you in a noisy 738 flightdeck, I would get a good headset with good noise cancellation. Even though you might have to pay big bucks for it, it will still be worth it. Over time your hearing will degrade with a bad headset, and that cannot be fixed. All you can do, buy a good headset.
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I've tried the Telex 850 and also the Bose A20.
The Telex is light, takes up almost no room in a flight bag and the mix seems good quality.
However I personally found it a bit uncomfortable (Most people say the opposite) due to the on ear design, I don't get on overly well with on ear designs. I had to remove them for a minute or two during cruise to give my ears a rest. It also may have been a problem with my headset but the side tone was not noticeable unless the volume on the audio panel was turned up to uncomfortable levels. I found it distracting not to hear side tone and kept having to check the mic was working (it always was to be fair).
The Bose A20 is what I prefer to use. It takes up much more space in the bag, it is heavier and it also needs batteries which the 850 doesn't, however the noise canceling is leaps and bounds ahead of just about anything else (aside from maybe light speeds which come close) and even though it is heavier and 'clamps' more, I don't find it uncomfortable after wearing it for the whole day.
The Telex is light, takes up almost no room in a flight bag and the mix seems good quality.
However I personally found it a bit uncomfortable (Most people say the opposite) due to the on ear design, I don't get on overly well with on ear designs. I had to remove them for a minute or two during cruise to give my ears a rest. It also may have been a problem with my headset but the side tone was not noticeable unless the volume on the audio panel was turned up to uncomfortable levels. I found it distracting not to hear side tone and kept having to check the mic was working (it always was to be fair).
The Bose A20 is what I prefer to use. It takes up much more space in the bag, it is heavier and it also needs batteries which the 850 doesn't, however the noise canceling is leaps and bounds ahead of just about anything else (aside from maybe light speeds which come close) and even though it is heavier and 'clamps' more, I don't find it uncomfortable after wearing it for the whole day.
PPRuNe Handmaiden
I've used the Telex 750, Telex 850, Sennheiser HMEC 25-KA, Bose A20. I've also used David Clarks way back long ago.
Telex, rubbish. Poor sound quality. The 850s are only marginally better.
Sennheisers, excellent quality. Used them for 7 years with no issues. Now serving time with an easyJet pilot.
Bose? Awesome. Love them. A bit heavier than the others but with both passive and active noise protection, well worth it. Sound clarity is fantastic and will work if the batteries die. Intelligent battery power consumption too.
Excellent customer care too from Bose. Very important.
If you were heading to the bush I would say DC as they are bullet proof.
Telex, rubbish. Poor sound quality. The 850s are only marginally better.
Sennheisers, excellent quality. Used them for 7 years with no issues. Now serving time with an easyJet pilot.
Bose? Awesome. Love them. A bit heavier than the others but with both passive and active noise protection, well worth it. Sound clarity is fantastic and will work if the batteries die. Intelligent battery power consumption too.
Excellent customer care too from Bose. Very important.
If you were heading to the bush I would say DC as they are bullet proof.
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David Clark Pro-X (very good)
Not as quiet as the A20 but MUCH lighter and WAY less clamping on your head. With the DC Pro X you will need to find the sweet spot on your ears where the cups have to sit in order to make the most of the (limited) passive NR, then the active NC will do the rest. You can still hear engines buzzing, gear and flaps motors but nothing worse than driving in your car on the highway.
Mind the DC comes with the same "intelligent" battery life management as the A20 but Bluetooth is standard issue for 2/3 of the price...everybody wins!
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Worked for quite a few year on the 737NG before lately switching to the A320 family, still rated on both.
I used several headsets, and had some mixed experiences with them.
Telex 850: Very lightweight, doesn't take up much room in your flightcase, good sound quality. Seems somewhat flimsy, but it never broke. Not enough noise protection for the 737 in my opinion, especially if you fly faster speeds (CI 45 and above).
Sennheiser HMEC 26: Very good noise protection, both active and passive if they sit correctly on your ears. Way too high clamp pressure though, at least with my rather big head. Since i wear glasses that leads to quite a headache after a few hours. On my private pair i had the talk through function, it is rather useless, i wouldn't spend any money on that. The connection to a music player is only very rarely useful, in europe there is usually too much radio noise going on for it to work nicely, on some quieter routes into eastern europe, africa and over the atlantic where we use datalink anyway, it is nice.
Bose QC-15: would be the best of the bunch, if it weren't for the dismal quality of the microphone. It produces a constant hissing background sound which can drive you nuts after some time. Apart from that it has great noise protection, is extremely comfortable even though the microphone is only on the left side. The downside is that it won't work if the battery dies, always carry spares and change them early.
Sennheiser 46: Without active noise reduction pretty much useless, it is our company provided headset on our airbus fleet, we usually only wear it for climb and descent, during cruise it is much better to work without a headset. Although i might spend some money on in-ear noise filters.
Plugs is mostly a company choice. I haven't seen a 737 with the XLR-5 connector and even on our airbus fleet only very few aircraft have it. The standard in my outfit is the usual two plug connector, so it is easy enough to use a normal headset.
I used several headsets, and had some mixed experiences with them.
Telex 850: Very lightweight, doesn't take up much room in your flightcase, good sound quality. Seems somewhat flimsy, but it never broke. Not enough noise protection for the 737 in my opinion, especially if you fly faster speeds (CI 45 and above).
Sennheiser HMEC 26: Very good noise protection, both active and passive if they sit correctly on your ears. Way too high clamp pressure though, at least with my rather big head. Since i wear glasses that leads to quite a headache after a few hours. On my private pair i had the talk through function, it is rather useless, i wouldn't spend any money on that. The connection to a music player is only very rarely useful, in europe there is usually too much radio noise going on for it to work nicely, on some quieter routes into eastern europe, africa and over the atlantic where we use datalink anyway, it is nice.
Bose QC-15: would be the best of the bunch, if it weren't for the dismal quality of the microphone. It produces a constant hissing background sound which can drive you nuts after some time. Apart from that it has great noise protection, is extremely comfortable even though the microphone is only on the left side. The downside is that it won't work if the battery dies, always carry spares and change them early.
Sennheiser 46: Without active noise reduction pretty much useless, it is our company provided headset on our airbus fleet, we usually only wear it for climb and descent, during cruise it is much better to work without a headset. Although i might spend some money on in-ear noise filters.
Plugs is mostly a company choice. I haven't seen a 737 with the XLR-5 connector and even on our airbus fleet only very few aircraft have it. The standard in my outfit is the usual two plug connector, so it is easy enough to use a normal headset.
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Thanks for your tips and experiences! I'll stick to the HMEC26 but without this talk through function. I was told things between rather useless and just sometimes useful. The price for the headset in connection with the 2 plug connectors seems legit to me, just figured out that my airline has the 2 plug system installed.
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Denti, sorry to hear you are having trouble with the product. You should not be hearing a constant hiss. If you are, the gain may be set too high or there may be a malfunction with the microphone. Please contact us and we will see what we can do to fix this.
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HEADSET
Hi there
my advice is to buy PHONAK FREECOM 7100 headset which is the most comfortable
headset that i"ve ever used and you can buy it from SKYFOX.DE website
just for your info the PHONAK has a lot of experience over hearing aids (80 years ) and it is made in switzerland
I"ve used every headset on the planet ( i mean the best ones ) but this one is great with awesome quality and the only negative point that i want to mention, is that it doesnt have TSO or ETSO approval .
GOOD LUCK
my advice is to buy PHONAK FREECOM 7100 headset which is the most comfortable
headset that i"ve ever used and you can buy it from SKYFOX.DE website
just for your info the PHONAK has a lot of experience over hearing aids (80 years ) and it is made in switzerland
I"ve used every headset on the planet ( i mean the best ones ) but this one is great with awesome quality and the only negative point that i want to mention, is that it doesnt have TSO or ETSO approval .
GOOD LUCK
Last edited by comruz; 20th Sep 2015 at 08:26.
