Clarity Aloft Headset
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I purchased a Clarity Aloft headset for use in my motor glider. The Clarity Aloft is a passive in-ear headset that uses Comply brand foam earbud tips to provide great noise isolation.
The switch box on the Clarity Aloft has a master volume control, an 2.5mm stereo audio jack for auxilary input for music or cell phone and a stereo/mono switch. Since it is entirely passive there is no radio mute on the auxilary input. The headset looks well made and is comfortable to wear, even while wearing sunglasses and an oxygen cannula hooked over my ears. I think the headset will just hang over my neck when not in use.
Some people hate how in-ear style phones feel, but I already have several very nice phones from Etymotic Research for music listing (middle photo at left) and really like them. The Etymotic ear phones come with several different types of ear plug tips, including their standard soft plastic white flanged tips and Comply foam tips on some models. Etymotic claim 35 dB isolation for the white three flange tips and 41db isolation for the Comply foam tips.
Other motor glider pilots using earphones with Comply tips have complained that it can be inconvenient to have to squeeze and mess around inserting the foam tips in your ear especially when needing to do a quick in-air engine start. The Etymoics white plastic tips by comparison just plug in without needing to be squeezed or rolled between your fingers first.
The fact that the Comply tips fit the Etymoics Research earphones made me realize I can probably just plug the Etymoics plastic tips onto the Clarity Aloft headset and live with a little less but still good isolation — and it works fine. The bottom photo to the left show the Etymoics white plastic plugs on the left earphone and the standard Comply grey foam tips on the right earphone. The Etymotic white plastic tips are available at the Ear Plug Store.
If over time I find these don’t provide enough noise isolation I’ll look at having custom moulded ear plugs made by an audiology lab.
On the Clarity Aloft I like the smallish volume control and aux sound input box near the headphone plugs and will probably Velcro this place on the right side of the ASH-26E cockpit. I’ve going feed the Cambridge 302 flight computer audio into the aux input on the Becker VHF radio. That way electronic vario, stall and gear warning audio will apear on the headset. I might run my iPod nanno into the aux music input on the Clarity Aloft box.
There is a useful comparison of in-ear aviation headsets by Aviation Consumer available in PDF here.
BTW I called Aloft Technology beforehand to try to check whether the Etymoic plugs would fit or to see if they could recommend somewhere to do custom moulded earplugs and got absolutely no help, they just want people to use the foam tips. The woman on the support line was ultra-useless, rabbiting on about how they don’t recommend using anything but the Comply foam plugs and how I would need to get the “avionics changed” if I changed to custom moulded earplugs. Oh right…
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I flew today with these in a Grob 109 motorglider. I was using the white ribbed plastic plugs and they worked great, both the sound and ambient noise isolation from the earphones and the operation of the microphone were just great.
Comment by darryl — March 26, 2007 @ 5:55 pm
I am checking into purchasing an in the ear headset, and was wordering if the adjustment band makes a difference. Do the stay in place well? and also, with an ipod plugged in, does it cut out when a transmission comes over the radio? Thanks
Comment by Brian — July 13, 2007 @ 9:24 am
I have a large head and don’t need the adjustment band, it would be uncomfortably tight. I suspect most people won’t need it.
The auxilary/music input is entirely passive so there is no automatic muting.
Comment by darryl — July 13, 2007 @ 2:24 pm