Register
Accessories Cockpit Accessories

Reader Headset Survey: Bose and DC Best Bets

One thing from our survey was crystal clear: Most pilots love their current headset. An astounding 90 percent of the over 900 pilots who answered our survey considered their headset to be a good value after using it in the field for some time. Considering the majority of respondents had their headset for more than four years, thats saying something. When asked if, knowing what they know now, would they go out and buy the same headset again, 86 percent said they would. Several of the "no" votes were just because they wanted to upgrade to active noise reduction (ANR), Bluetooth or a cell phone interface. Such rosy-cheeked satisfaction isn't what we usually see on these surveys. Does it mean you'll be happy with whatever you buy? Hardly. Performance is largely in the eye of the beholder. If there's one takeaway from this survey, its that the best headset for you depends on your mission, your wallet and, most importantly, your head.

Jeff VanWest
Verified

One thing from our survey was crystal clear: Most pilots love their current headset. An astounding 90 percent of the over 900 pilots who answered our survey considered their headset to be a good value after using it in the field for some time. Considering the majority of respondents had their headset for more than four years, thats saying something.

When asked if, knowing what they know now, would they go out and buy the same

Best ANR Headsets

headset again, 86 percent said they would. Several of the “no” votes were just because they wanted to upgrade to active noise reduction (ANR), Bluetooth or a cell phone interface.

Such rosy-cheeked satisfaction isn’t what we usually see on these surveys. Does it mean you’ll be happy with whatever you buy? Hardly.

Performance is largely in the eye of the beholder. If there’s one takeaway from this survey, its that the best headset for you depends on your mission, your wallet and, most importantly, your head.

ANR: Lightspeed and Bose

We put the top ANR headsets head-to-head in an exhaustive test in the July 2007 issue of Aviation Consumer. The Bose Headset X was the winner then and was also the most popular headset in the survey, with 28 percent of respondents owning at least one of them. The biggest rave about Bose: comfort.

Bose seems to have clamping pressure just right, and we saw many comments like, “Other headsets Ive had made my head hurt after a long day of use but not the Bose X. I bought it in 1998 when it first came out and couldnt be happier with it.”

Bose customer service was generally well-regarded, but we saw some complaints that repairs were too expensive. Durability was OK, but the Bose X doesnt hold up to rough-handling as some other models. That said, one report came from a missionary pilot logging eight-hour days in tropical conditions. After 750 hours of this, his Bose was still working great.

Bose earcups are smaller than average and may not fit we’ll if you have big lobes. We also had a split in pilots with noisy cockpits. The Bose did we’ll with low rumbles of warbirds, but not so we’ll with the high-pitched engines of some homebuilts. No

Jeff VanWest