Best headset for a CFI?

I love my Zulu. We flew 8+ hours a day patrolling. At the end of the day I was ready to get them off, but I was ready to get my trusty DC ones off after about 2 hours.

Try out some Clarity Alofts. I personally didn't like them because I don't like the feel of wearing ear plugs for hours. But my partners liked them, especially for aerobatic flight.
 
I've been thinking of modifying one of my DC H10-13.4's with a kit from cep-usa or just DIYing it and building one from scratch like this.
I currently wear earplugs with my headset anyway, so I'm used to having plugs in my ears. Being able to keep the ability of plugging my ear canal from external noise, while hearing ATC, my student, passenger(s), and other air traffic directly without the earplug reducing their transmission would be a nice improvement.
I might get a Clarity Aloft someday, but $500-$800 is hard to justify right now when I can just modify a headset I already own for improved communication.
 
I did the ANR mod to my old DC 10-40 (the old heavy ones). I first sent them out to DC for a re-furb. As always DC did a great job. Then put in the ANR kit (http://www.headsetsinc.com/anr_kits.html). It took about 30 minutes and I have reasonable soldering skills.

It works pretty darn good. The passive NR is awesome, and the ANR works pretty dang well, considering. Not as good as a Zulu 2 or a A20, but for the price, it's pretty frigging good.

If you can get a good deal on a used passive set, and do the ANR, you'll have a really pretty decent rig.

Richman
 
The DC Pro-X are pretty marginal for piston use, I have a pair and once you get the hang of adjusting the fit on your ears they work incredibly well for what they are. Still use them daily in the 206 and Beaver. They work better than a Bose X headset if that helps, but I haven't tried the newer A20.

I'd check out the DC One-X, passive attenuation is very good. Great company, still made in the US. And they're a couple hundred less than bose.
 
Another factor I find to be a plus to some headsets is the ability to switch which side of the headset the cable attaches too.

I instructed for a bit using a Clarity Aloft headset and occasionally the cable would get pinned between me and the seat as it ran around to the left side of the headband. So any time I turned my head, I was pulling on the cord. Either that, or the cord ran across my lap if the jacks were on the right side of the airplane.

It's a minor annoyance, but an annoyance nonetheless.
 
cjkelly42 said:
Another factor I find to be a plus to some headsets is the ability to switch which side of the headset the cable attaches too.

I instructed for a bit using a Clarity Aloft headset and occasionally the cable would get pinned between me and the seat as it ran around to the left side of the headband. So any time I turned my head, I was pulling on the cord. Either that, or the cord ran across my lap if the jacks were on the right side of the airplane.

It's a minor annoyance, but an annoyance nonetheless.
Click to expand...

Part of the way to solve that problem (I had the same issue with the QT Halos) was a little trick I learned from @bucksmith - take a few inches of wire to give yourself some slack, and then clip it to the back of your shirt collar. You should have enough slack to turn your head fully in either direction without pulling.
 
After you get used to ANR you hear everything, including the engine, just fine.
 
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