
While I was recently shopping at BestBuy for a wireless music speaker, a salesperson who arbitrarily remarked that Bose was the best got me thinking about pilots shopping for premium aviation headsets, a market dominated by Bose and also Lightspeed for as long as I can remember. While Bose may be the most recognizable name in both the consumer audio and aviation headset markets, don’t forget that Lightspeed Aviation was a major force in shifting the market from passive to active noise cancelling headsets in the early 1990s. It sold something along the line of 300,000 sets before eventually trying its hand at wireless and software-driven models (both greeted with lukewarm reception), then recently shifting focus to the more utilitarian Zulu3 model. At $850 it easily holds its own against the pricier $1100 Bose A20.