I can no longer recommend David Clark headsets, their quality is horrible

wheelsup

wheelsup

Well-Known Member
I sent in my roughly 13 year old headset for repair as the cord plugs were becoming brittle, and I had to wiggle them around to get a connection.

I used my refurbished headset (cost $80) for 2 months and noticed this cracking.This wasn't even cracked on my 13 year old unit, used for roughly 7 of those years full time (student, CFI, commuters).

I try to buy American but we are cutting costs so much our stuff is crap nowadays.
 

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So...you had a DC for 13 years, sent it in for refurbishment, and after two months, a small piece of plastic cracked? And that makes it horrible?

Am I misunderstanding, or is there a sarcasm tag missing? o_O
 
I've never been a fan of them for comfort reasons, but that being said...I'm not sure I'd outright boycott an entire company due to a cracked piece of plastic.
 
I think what he is saying is that the part that was just put on his headset broke after only 3 months, whereas the first part lasted 13 years.
 
At least their customer service is top notch. I sent my Sennheiser S1 digital in for repairs on January 5th, and every time I call the service department they give me a new date for a back ordered part they're waiting for.

Not only that, but I had only owned them about 8 months before the ANR completely failed. This is unacceptable.
 
Apophis said:
At least their customer service is top notch. I sent my Sennheiser S1 digital in for repairs on January 5th, and every time I call the service department they give me a new date for a back ordered part they're waiting for.

Not only that, but I had only owned them about 8 months before the ANR completely failed. This is unacceptable.
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2 months for product replacement is ridiculousness...I'd be on the horn with the credit card since it's last than a year if Sennheiser is giving you the run around
 
Jimmy_Norton said:
I think what he is saying is that the part that was just put on his headset broke after only 3 months, whereas the first part lasted 13 years.
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Yep...except that after 13 years that rubber still wasn't busted like it is on the new one.

This is big with me...you have to wonder what other inferior materials they are using nowadays.
 
Jpax said:
So...you had a DC for 13 years, sent it in for refurbishment, and after two months, a small piece of plastic cracked? And that makes it horrible?

Am I misunderstanding, or is there a sarcasm tag missing? o_O
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Think about what they are cutting corners are where you can't see? The quality just won't be there IMO.The David Clark that was of yesteryear isn't producing the same quality stuff it appears.

I bought a new down cord for my Bose X a couple months ago, the phone jack was put in at a 30* angle. Fortunately their CS is great, they shipped a new one to me which is good, but how did that get past inspection?!?
 
Apophis said:
At least their customer service is top notch. I sent my Sennheiser S1 digital in for repairs on January 5th, and every time I call the service department they give me a new date for a back ordered part they're waiting for.

Not only that, but I had only owned them about 8 months before the ANR completely failed. This is unacceptable.
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Wow that is pretty bad, sorry you have had bad luck.

At home I have resorted to buying older equipment on CraigsList or eBay, which is why I chose to refurbish my headset. Just upsetting.
 
I will say that my original DC ear seals lasted, and I'm not making this up, about 15 years. In the five years since then, I've had two more sets. There's something to what you're saying, but since the ear seals are the only thing I've ever replaced, they're also the only thing that's ever broken on the thing. In 20 years and ~7000 hours. I like DC just fine, thanks. I'm really looking forward to wearing them at 40 years and the F/O looking at me like I've got a leather football helmet and a throat mike.
 
deadpixel said:
2 months for product replacement is ridiculousness...I'd be on the horn with the credit card since it's last than a year if Sennheiser is giving you the run around
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I don't know, they've said I won't have to pay for the repairs but I'm not sure I believe that at this point.

I've been using my old David Clark H10-20s for the time being, which aren't so bad. Maybe I'll drop kick the Sennheisers into the garbage in protest if I ever get them back.
 
wheelsup said:
Yep...except that after 13 years that rubber still wasn't busted like it is on the new one.

This is big with me...you have to wonder what other inferior materials they are using nowadays.
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How do you know it is an inferior material? Maybe you caught it at a bad angle and it ripped. Maybe there was an undetectable issue with the rubber piece. No company is immune to issues with their products in the short term. Quality parts can help reduce short term issues but not completely eliminate them. You could have just had some bad luck. It happens.

How DC customer service responds to the situation is how you should judge the company. Unless you have some hard evidence of a large percentage of people having said part rip all the time I don't see how one experience should drive an overall opinion.
 
Maurus said:
How do you know it is an inferior material? Maybe you caught it at a bad angle and it ripped. Maybe there was an undetectable issue with the rubber piece. No company is immune to issues with their products in the short term. Quality parts can help reduce short term issues but not completely eliminate them. You could have just had some bad luck. It happens.

How DC customer service responds to the situation is how you should judge the company. Unless you have some hard evidence of a large percentage of people having said part rip all the time I don't see how one experience should drive an overall opinion.
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Well to me, it's pretty obvious that the rubber isn't supposed to crack right away (it's not plastic). When rubber gets old it starts to crack, but not properly made rubber.

It's indicative of the other materials used as well.

Another thing that upsets me, I sent in my headset with explicit instructions to not throw out my ear seals. I told them over the phone, thru email, and a note in the box. I had just bought new ones, and when they do the refurb they include new ear seals, so I would have ended up with two sets. Instead, they discarded my recently bought ear seals, money down the drain.

Also, when getting the quote, they initially told me $123. After I didn't respond for roughly 3 weeks, they emailed again the $80 figure. Hmm...

The whole exchange has left a bad taste in my mouth, which is too bad because I really did like the headset.
 
In 2003, I bought a DC ENC headset. The one with with 6 AA batteries in the power pack :eek:... Well after 9 years and 2000+ flight hours, I finally sent it in to get a refurb and [finally] the 9 volt power pack. The refurb cost less than $80 and shipping was about $13 with my FedEx discount.

In about 2 weeks, I got it back and it worked great. Noise cancelling was much better from when I sent it in. After about 20~ flight hours, it went completely dead on me. Nothing. Nada. So I sent it back and they turned it around very quickly and it's been fine since.

However... On the second send-back, I emailed them requesting they cover the outbound shipping since this was very clearly a defect on their end. They just sent the fixed headset back with no mention of a shipping refund. That irked me a bit. I'll probably email them back about that soon.

But, that said, having flown with DCs for years and dealing with their customer service more regularly at a previous job, I'd still recommend their product. I intend to use my DCs until they won't fix em anymore... or the company provides a better headset for me.
 
CS got back to me. They want me to ship it back on my dime, for a $0.50 piece. I asked for a prepaid label, we'll see what they say.
 
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