Best value for money ?

[David Isaac]

if you don't inhibit corrosion (oxidation of the contact surfaces) your resistivity goes up with the corrosion.

 

 

[metalman]

I'm wondering where all this corrosion is coming from, my DC headset has been in my use for 8 years and was used when I got them, my pax set is even older, and unless the corrosion is microscopic they're as good as new.

 

Another point aswell, everytime you plug them in the contacts are getting a scrape ,,,,,,,so if your headset is getting rusty,,,,well you need to fly more!

 

Matty

 

 

[dazza 38]

I have had my DC 13.4 head set since 1998. I had to clean the jacks with Brasso back in 2008, all good apart from that. :)

 

 

[pmccarthy]

It is either connected or not. The non-gold plugs and sockets are perfectly adequate. If connected, the signal is transferred. Gold may be good in some extreme environment but that is not a home stereo or an aircraft comms setup.

 

 

[DonRamsay]

I have the Lightspeed Zulu 1 and DC 13.4. Both are good. The Lightspeeds are better if you like ANR. I've used the Bose and compared with the ZULUs there is little difference other than the Bose cost a couple of hundred more. Value for money you'd go for Ian's REc Flyers and then DC and then Zulu and then Bose with plenty of others in between.

 

I mention "like" ANR because it can suppress external warnings like a Jabiru Stall warning. A passenger of mine videoed the landing and on playing it back the stall warning (at touchdown) was quite audible on the video but I never heard it at all with the Zulus on and switched on.

 

Don

 

 

[Dafydd Llewellyn]

Yeah, the cooking-grade stuff is good for about ten years under most conditions - longer in favourable circumstances. That suits the "whitegoods" mentality quite well - and ensures they buy a new one well inside that time. However, if you want things to last longer than that, contact resistance starts to become a nuisance. I tend to want my machinery to still work a bit longer than that. I drove from QLD to Adelaide & back a week ago, to collect a glider canopy; the only vehicle to hand with a long enough suitably-protected load space was a Peugeot 505 7-seat wagon. It ran well and efficiently - but every couple of days, the heater went full hot - due to contact resistance in a blade-type fuse holder. The car was mechanically fine, but the electrical system was dieing due to oxidation in lousy two-bob bits of the electrical system. This is common in a lot of machinery that is around 20 years old; the electrical bits die first. So I'd like the next step up in component quality.

 

 

[Bob Llewellyn]

I'm wondering where all this corrosion is coming from, my DC headset has been in my use for 8 years and was used when I got them, my pax set is even older, and unless the corrosion is microscopic they're as good as new.Another point aswell, everytime you plug them in the contacts are getting a scrape ,,,,,,,so if your headset is getting rusty,,,,well you need to fly more!

Matty

Most jacks are nickel plated or stainless steel; the oxide film is invisible, and should stay that way unless you use 'em for stirring acid or Toowoomba town water... however, running a low impedance set of speakers, the voltage drop across the oxide film becomes a measurable %age of the total power. As aviation does not use 4 ohm speakers on 6 volt systems, the advantages of gold plating are pretty moot. However, that's the basis of the argument for hifi freaks...

 

 

[Bob Llewellyn]

It is either connected or not. The non-gold plugs and sockets are perfectly adequate. If connected, the signal is transferred. Gold may be good in some extreme environment but that is not a home stereo or an aircraft comms setup.

Ooooh! Oooh! no! Ohm's law! Think a resistive equivalent of Standing Wave Ratio! Look, it's quite verifiable that when you are sitting in the silent cabin of your FlightDoodle 30000000 (background noise 3dB(A)), listening to "Bolero", the sound energy ratio of the piccolos will be less (compared to the Oboes) than the original Orchestral score! You can ONLY reduce this unwarranted attack on artistic integrity by gold plating your unsoldered connectors!

 

 

[Bob Llewellyn]

Yeah, the cooking-grade stuff is good for about ten years under most conditions - longer in favourable circumstances. That suits the "whitegoods" mentality quite well - and ensures they buy a new one well inside that time. However, if you want things to last longer than that, contact resistance starts to become a nuisance. I tend to want my machinery to still work a bit longer than that. I drove from QLD to Adelaide & back a week ago, to collect a glider canopy; the only vehicle to hand with a long enough suitably-protected load space was a Peugeot 505 7-seat wagon. It ran well and efficiently - but every couple of days, the heater went full hot - due to contact resistance in a blade-type fuse holder. The car was mechanically fine, but the electrical system was dieing due to oxidation in lousy two-bob bits of the electrical system. This is common in a lot of machinery that is around 20 years old; the electrical bits die first. So I'd like the next step up in component quality.

Mumble - I think "Metalman" had a point - headphone jacks get cycled rather more frequently than car fuses - however, the principle of reducing failure probability through quality does have a place in aviation... it's why i own thrusters, you mark my words...

 

 

[Dafydd Llewellyn]

True enough for headphones. Also, headphone jacks pass milliamps, not amps. However, many car and aircraft systems use currents that will cause considerable heating due to contact resistance, so the oxidation rate at the contacts increases exponentially. Whilst aircraft wiring uses (or should use) tinned copper wiring in non-PVC jacketing - thus escaping the corrosion that one finds on bare copper in PVC jackets, the issue of corrosion in crimped terminals, and at mechanical contacts, is a reliability issue - and can be a fire hazard. The use of 24 volt systems greatly reduces this, but you don't find them in either cars or recreational aircraft. PVC insulation produces hydrogen chloride when it gets hot, and that's not good to breathe, either. OK, OK, I'm getting off-topic - maybe this should be in a thread on aircraft wiring practices.

 

 

[ozbear]

]Go for the David Clarke , i bought a cheap second set for passenger use and the seals fall off in hot weather and the mike boom keeps coming loose .The David Clarke H10-13.4 I find a good model.

 

 

[DonRamsay]

Unlikely as it may seem, I did have an electrical problem with my DC H10-13.4 which I had bought over the net from Florida (Pilot Mall - excellent). I contacted the local agents at Bankstown and they were quite happy to repair the headset under warranty and without a charge of any kind. No arguments. The fault has never recurred. These are quality headsets, relatively inexpensive and well backed up.

 

 

[sain]

Gold plated is BS, same as with HiFi. Either they connect or they don't. The electrons don't know whether they are flowing through gold or copper.

Actually thats not quite right.

The gold is a reasonable conductor of electricity, but that isn't why its being used in this case. Its being used because it doesn't oxidise, corrode or otherwise react easily. Copper is a much better conductor, but it oxidises easily, which will make it break down and it wont make a good electrical contact anymore. Aluminium is also better, but it is fairly highly reactive to a number of things, which means it isn't a good choice. Stainless steel is a good conductor, and will pretty well.

 

So basically, yeah, the gold is a bit of a waste of time. Apart from that the Recreational Flying headsets are pretty good. I've got a pair, and a pair of DC-10s. The only trouble I've had with them is with one particular intercom, which seems to hate mixed headsets - tons of static with both headsets plugged in. Unplug one and the problem went away. It apparantly had the same issue with top of the line Bose ANRs...

 

Anyway, the Recreational Flying headset represent excellent value for money for the quality of noise reduction that you get with them. If you don't want to fork out for an ANR set, you can't really go wrong with them.

 

*edit* whups, should have read further on in the thread - I thought Aluminium was better than gold.