Weird things with Lightspeed Sierra on pilot jacks

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Aviator305

Pre-takeoff checklist
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Juan
I usually fly with a Bose A20, but being curious I decided to try out my wife's Lightspeed Sierra. I have noticed two things that I are specific to the Lightspeed Sierra hooked up to the pilot jacks.

1) There is a high-pitched electrical sound in the background at all times.

2) On takeoff, I picked up a radio station (either AM or FM) for which I could hear a commercial running faintly in the background. That eventually went away when I got a few hundred feet above pattern altitude.

This only happens with the Lightspeed Sierra hooked up to the pilot jack. It does not happen with the Bose A20 nor my old AvComm. It also does not happen with the Lightspeed Sierra hooked up to the co-pilot or passenger jacks.

I guess the easy answer is to just not use the Lightspeed Sierra on the pilot side, but I'm wondering if anyone has any ideas as to what may be going on here.
 
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I bought my Sierra cheap because the seller complained about the same thing. It was still under warranty, so I bought it anyway and sent it back to Lightspeed for overhaul. And wouldn't you know it, it started doing it again today.

I also have a Zulu3 and it's been flawless, so I don't know what is different about the Sierra that makes it prone to this. Or if it's just our two Sierras vs Sierras in general.
 
asicer said:
I bought my Sierra cheap because the seller complained about the same thing. It was still under warranty, so I bought it anyway and sent it back to Lightspeed for overhaul. And wouldn't you know it, it started doing it again today.

I also have a Zulu3 and it's been flawless, so I don't know what is different about the Sierra that makes it prone to this. Or if it's just our two Sierras vs Sierras in general.
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Hmm maybe there’s some kind of shielding that is of inferior quality relative to the Zulus? They had to come up with $400 delta somewhere. The noise cancellation is awesome (I thought even better than my Bose A20), so they didn’t go cheap there.
 
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Odd, I’ve never experienced anything like that with my Sierras.
 
I tried it again today and mine is back to normal. No more high-pitched whine.

Aviator305 said:
Hmm maybe there’s some kind of shielding that is of inferior quality relative to the Zulus? They had to come up with $400 delta somewhere. The noise cancellation is awesome (I thought even better than my Bose A20), so they didn’t go cheap there.
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I just remembered one difference: The Zulus are made in China while the Sierras are made in the USA. :dunno:
 
Interesting that it only happens with the Sierra and only in that location. There’s probably some imperfect condition on the mic jacks that the other headsets can deal with better than the Sierra. The annual is coming up soon, so I’ll ask my mechanic to check it out.
 
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