On Sat, 27 Nov 2004 01:09:01 GMT, Gerald Sylvester
wrote:



More and more of my friends are interested in going flying with
me. I guess word is getting around. I have a DC 10-60 for myself.
Shortly after I got my license I got another pair for passenger use.
I preferred not to spend so much but after trying on so many others,
I didn't want to subject my passengers to such crude torture.

Well it's time to get another passenger headset. I am thinking
about getting a cheaper pair for their use or just upgrading
mine to ANR. I tried my friend DC 10-13X's and for some reason
they sounded funny like some kind of odd feedback. It wasn't horrendous
but for $600 I'm looking for 'perfect' or as close to it. I tried
my other friend's Bose and they were damn nice but for $1000, ummm, I
can think of a 1000 other things to spend it on.

Does anyone have any experience with Panther and the newer Lightspeed?
I think there is one other too but can't remember the name. How's
the sound quality? How's the PNR and the ANR? How's the durability?
I know the Lightspeeds regular headsets have MANY more problems than
DC's but apparently this headset comes with a case.

I have 2 sets of Lightspeed 20XLs and am happy with them. They are
comfortable and have reasonable noise cancelling. My headset prior to
these was a DC H10-13.4 (passive NR only). The DC blows away the
20XLs when only looking at PNR, but click the button to turn on ANR,
and the 20XLs sound better than the 13.4. Passive ANR is still
important though, as the ANR feature can break, or more likely the
batteries can go dead.

I would not hesitate to buy another Lightspeed headset, especially the
30 3Gs which advertise another 6dB of ANR. That would be nice.

I have also flown in a friend's Cirrus with Bose X ANR headsets. The
were quiet, I think quieter than my 20XLs would have been, and they
sounded phenomenal (we listened to a few CDs on the trip). However, I
thought both my DC 13.4s and LS 20XLs were more comfortable. In
defense of the Bose - I did not spend much time adjusting it (was
having too much fun playing with the Cirrus' glass panels) so maybe I
did not have them adjusted correctly.

Whatever you end up buying, make sure it has automatic shutoff. I
have forgotten to shut the headsets off after a good number of flights
- which with the 20XL's auto-off feature, is not a big deal. Another
feature nicety is panel power. This would be much better than
stuffing AA batteries into the headsets.

-Nathan