Kid's dual prong ANR headset

[Luckypants]

Looking for a children's headset that will accomodate a 6 month old, suggestions are appreciated.
Thanks!

 

[DJTorrente]

I suggest you'll be more successful finding an appropriately-sized passive earmuffs than an active (or passive) headset. My daughter was 3.5 before I thought her head was large enough for even a kid-sized headset to give the ear cups a good enough seal to do any protecting. If there's going to be a large gap at the jawbone, you're giving away a lot of ANR & PNR both. At 6 mos. I think you'd be hard pressed to find any headset that fits well, much less limiting yourself to ANR.

By the time I first took her younger brother flying I realized that voice communication with the kiddies wasn't all that important. Wearing the passive muff I subsequently bought (Peltor Kids), they had a tendency to yell anyway, which was good enough for communication in a 172 cockpit -- just like the good old days. I typically responded by nodding or shaking my head, or pointing to something outside the cockpit for them to look at. Most importantly, I didn't even have to flip a switch to mute them.

The key element for me was effective hearing protection, and my judgment was that was best found in the <$20 kids muffs that were sized to seal well around the ear was better than any aviation headset on the market.

Good luck, and keep up the good work looking out for those kids in your care.

http://www.lightspeedaviation.com/c...quiet/Section-3-Acoustic-Design-Tradeoffs.htm

Ear Seal design/comfort: As a second example of design tradeoffs, consider the choices for ear seals and their effect on overall headset performance. The ANR designer needs to have a very good seal to insure a stable acoustic cavity for cancellation. As such, he would like to have an easily conforming material (and probably so would we) that compressed to a small acoustic cavity. If you refer to Section 4 of the ANR 101 series, we discussed various material selections and their effects on attenuation and comfort. Note that the material with the BEST attenuation properties is the WORST for conformability and side pressure requirements. An industrial designer (concerned with fit and comfort) would also point out that increasing the overall depth of the seal IMPROVES ear comfort with greater volume and overall internal size. Larger ear side cavity volume would tend to increase passive performance, but only if the ear seal construction is dense and relatively inflexible. (ouch!!) For comfort's sake, the larger seals are typically constructed with foam that is not a very effective attenuator, offers no real gains (and sometimes losses!) in passive performance.

Design variables relating to the cup size, shape, and how it interfaces to your ears/head are the CENTRAL issues in the headset design and performance. If the design is optimized to be comfortable and effective acoustically, a passive attenuation tradeoff is often made in the ear seal design. A larger, more conforming seal makes for greater wearing comfort and fit with glasses. The ANR designer must also work harder to get good performance and stability in this larger space. As discussed earlier, the allocation of cavity volume effects not only passive attenuation and active performance and also issues like battery life. Large back cavity volumes improve battery efficiencies, but at the expense of ear-side volume and passive attenuation. All these tradeoffs need to be understood and planned into the product so the customer is clear about exactly what his headset is good at! It can't be all things to all pilots.

(emphasis added)

 

[pigpenracing]

I would do the David Clark H10-13y. They are good quality and have the big thick gell earseals for a nice seal. The other brand kids headsets are junk. I would not do anr either. You get a airgap in the seal your kid will get a loud anr squeal.

 

[Archammer]

Unfortunately your childs head at that age is far too small for a headset. The youngest that the youth headset will fit on an average child is about 3-5 years old.

You could try an "in-ear" type, but I think that would present a danger to your infants ears.

 

[Luckypants]

Thanks guys, I think the earmuffs are the way to go for now.