Jay Honeck
Touchdown! Greaser!
We purchased a pair of Lightspeed Zulu headsets at OSH last week, and have now flown with them three times. What an incredible piece of audio equipment!
We purchased the headsets for two reasons: (a) Friends with a noisy Piper Aztec found that they worked wonders in that high-noise environment, and (b) because Alan Schrader, president of Lightspeed, assured me that they would work in our Ercoupe -- the loudest airplane we've ever flown. (Our Lightspeed Twenty 3Gs worked perfectly in our Pathfinder -- and not at all in the Ercoupe. In fact, the popping and hissing they emitted actually *added* to the noise level.)
Our first flight was in our Pathfinder, a fairly loud, 6-cylinder variant of the Cherokee line, on our flight home from OSH, and the results were stunning. We had let our son use one of the two Zulus on his flight home from OSH in the Ercoupe, so Mary and I were able to switch back and forth between the 3Gs and the Zulus in flight.
With several hundred hours flight experience, we had always regarded the Twenty 3Gs to be a superior ANR headset, so the qualitative improvement was quite surprising -- but there was no questioning that it was like night and day. The Zulu was quieter and more comfortable by far than the already quiet and comfortable 3G.
The Zulu's bluetooth connection to my cell phone was seamless and easy, offering great sound quality without requiring the 3G's wired connection. When connected to our XM radio or CD player, the stereo enhancement called "Front/Center" makes the music sound like it's coming from right between your ears -- an impressive sound effect -- and the sound is every bit as good as my home stereos.
Our second Zulu experience was my son's flight home from OSH in the Ercoupe. He reported that there was absolutely no extraneous sound -- just blissful silence, even under that parabolic reflector of a canopy.
Today Mary and I were able to test them out in the Ercoupe and wow, what a difference. We've loved the Ercoupe since we got it in June -- it's the most fun airplane we've ever flown -- but with the cockpit open (in August, that's the only way to fly!) it is absolutely the loudest plane I've ever flown, and that noise level completely overwhelmed lesser ANR headsets. Flights of over an hour inevitably induced a headache -- not the best way to fly.
Not so with the Zulu. From the moment I put them on, and slipped into that blissful silence, I knew that the experience was going to be different. Going to full power (and hearing the roar of that "big" 85 horsepower Continental -- lots of noise, not a lot of oomph) the Zulus didn't so much as crackle, and once airborne we slid the canopy sides down and absorbed the full racket of the 100 mph wind rattling through the cockpit -- without so much as a burp from the Zulus. All we heard was a faint rumble of the engine, and the crystal clear radio and intercom.
The only potential problem we've run into is that when Mary turns her head it's possible to break the ear seal. This, of course, raises havoc with the ANR circuitry, and it seems to be related to her small-ish head size. (We were warned about this by another small-ish woman airline pilot who had tried the Zulus, so this wasn't entirely unexpected.) This only happens in the Ercoupe -- not in the Pathfinder -- and we're still tinkering with trying to tighten up the fit a bit for her -- but compared to the Twenty 3Gs (that didn't work at all in the Ercoupe) this is a minor problem, indeed.
We've owned seven previous Lightspeeds, and have tried all other brands, including Bose. All in all, I am confident when I say that the Zulu is the best headset on the market today. I highly recommend it.
We purchased the headsets for two reasons: (a) Friends with a noisy Piper Aztec found that they worked wonders in that high-noise environment, and (b) because Alan Schrader, president of Lightspeed, assured me that they would work in our Ercoupe -- the loudest airplane we've ever flown. (Our Lightspeed Twenty 3Gs worked perfectly in our Pathfinder -- and not at all in the Ercoupe. In fact, the popping and hissing they emitted actually *added* to the noise level.)
Our first flight was in our Pathfinder, a fairly loud, 6-cylinder variant of the Cherokee line, on our flight home from OSH, and the results were stunning. We had let our son use one of the two Zulus on his flight home from OSH in the Ercoupe, so Mary and I were able to switch back and forth between the 3Gs and the Zulus in flight.
With several hundred hours flight experience, we had always regarded the Twenty 3Gs to be a superior ANR headset, so the qualitative improvement was quite surprising -- but there was no questioning that it was like night and day. The Zulu was quieter and more comfortable by far than the already quiet and comfortable 3G.
The Zulu's bluetooth connection to my cell phone was seamless and easy, offering great sound quality without requiring the 3G's wired connection. When connected to our XM radio or CD player, the stereo enhancement called "Front/Center" makes the music sound like it's coming from right between your ears -- an impressive sound effect -- and the sound is every bit as good as my home stereos.
Our second Zulu experience was my son's flight home from OSH in the Ercoupe. He reported that there was absolutely no extraneous sound -- just blissful silence, even under that parabolic reflector of a canopy.
Today Mary and I were able to test them out in the Ercoupe and wow, what a difference. We've loved the Ercoupe since we got it in June -- it's the most fun airplane we've ever flown -- but with the cockpit open (in August, that's the only way to fly!) it is absolutely the loudest plane I've ever flown, and that noise level completely overwhelmed lesser ANR headsets. Flights of over an hour inevitably induced a headache -- not the best way to fly.
Not so with the Zulu. From the moment I put them on, and slipped into that blissful silence, I knew that the experience was going to be different. Going to full power (and hearing the roar of that "big" 85 horsepower Continental -- lots of noise, not a lot of oomph) the Zulus didn't so much as crackle, and once airborne we slid the canopy sides down and absorbed the full racket of the 100 mph wind rattling through the cockpit -- without so much as a burp from the Zulus. All we heard was a faint rumble of the engine, and the crystal clear radio and intercom.
The only potential problem we've run into is that when Mary turns her head it's possible to break the ear seal. This, of course, raises havoc with the ANR circuitry, and it seems to be related to her small-ish head size. (We were warned about this by another small-ish woman airline pilot who had tried the Zulus, so this wasn't entirely unexpected.) This only happens in the Ercoupe -- not in the Pathfinder -- and we're still tinkering with trying to tighten up the fit a bit for her -- but compared to the Twenty 3Gs (that didn't work at all in the Ercoupe) this is a minor problem, indeed.
We've owned seven previous Lightspeeds, and have tried all other brands, including Bose. All in all, I am confident when I say that the Zulu is the best headset on the market today. I highly recommend it.
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