Headsets

[warbirdcrew]

Hi All,

I'm looking for opinions from the p1luts on the board. Specifically I want to hear from people who have tried both the Bose and Sennheiser headsets. I am considering purchasing a couple noise-canceling headsets and I want to know what you guys think. Both the Bose and Sennheiser appear to be relatively comparable in price. I know the Bose seems to be more popular, but does that necessarily mean it is the better product? I want whichever will give the best noise-canceling hearing protection.

TIA
- Warbirdcrew

[Second Air Force]

We have a pair of Sennheisers, one a 300 series and the other a 400. The 300 just had a speaker go dead near the end of the warranty period, but the company has a repair station and I'm about to send it in. We've both found them to be comfortable to wear, even on a few 9-hour flying days. Ellen has some tinnitus and the active noise cancelling has helped her a lot in our old Mooney. I hard-wired the power sockets into the airplane a while back. The battery packs work well but you do go through a lot of AA batteries if you use them a lot.

I wore a Bose for less than an hour but I suspect it is still the best buy out there--I just couldn't shell out the thousand bucks for them at the time.

Scott

[Bill Greenwood]

I have a new Bose in my Bonanza. It is good not perfect. I bought it before Osh and the battery pack is still hot or you could wire it in. It is pretty comfortable, it is light, just that the ear cups are small and need to be centered over the ears.

It is not at all good with the noise canceling off, it is not like a David Clark in that regard. It's good with it on. I think it would be good in a Mooney, not in a warbird.

One pain in the rear is it comes in pieces, you have to screw the mike boom on and it takes a tiny Phillips. It looks fragile but seems to work.

[Pat]

I own a Bose headset, but have never tried Sennheisers. The Bose are about 100 times better than my old David Clark H10-13.4's. But yes, they do use a lot of batteries.

-Pat

[Moonlight]

I used Bose headsets both in the King Air I used to fly, and in the Carbon Cub. They work great, although in the cub the headsets chew through batteries like crazy.

[Bill Greenwood]

Aviation Consumer had a comparison test a year or two ago. They ranked the Bose high, and they downgraded the noise canceling David Clark model. The old DC s were great as was the service back then.

Bose will let you buy with a free return in 30 days if you don't like it. You might see if SENN does the same and get one of each, then return the one you don't like as well. Or see if guys nearby have ones you can try. To some extent more money buys a better one. My warbird one is a DC with the noise canceling added by Headsets Inc of Amarillo.

[warbirdcrew]

Thanks guys for your responses. I have grown up with David Clark (non-noise canceling) and Sigtronics headsets. Currently I use a David Clark noise-canceling model. Recently I have had opportunity to try the Bose X and I have to say nothing that I've tried can compare to the noise canceling abilities of the Bose. I suppose a test run of the Sennheiser is in order to properly evaluate it compared to the Bose X. I will fill you all in on the completion of my research.