More on the Bose
Thanks for Sy Pinkert’s insightful user report on the modified Bose ProFlight and Clarity Aloft in-ear headset in the January 2025 Aviation Consumer. It’s of course idiosyncratic, being one man’s experience, and I’d like to offer my own idiosyncrasies to the comparison.
First, what are the essential purposes of an aviation headset?
- To protect hearing.
- To make others’ radio transmissions more understandable.
- To make one’s own transmissions more understandable (I don’t know whether TSO’d units have microphone noise cancellation, but it’s great when it’s available).
I have 48 years of GA hearing protection experience, which I’ll skip over, mentioning it only to give a hint of gravitas to what I’ll say. I own a self-launching sailplane. The prop tips and barely-muffled engine are mounted immediately behind the cockpit, which is a quite resonant cavity and hearing protection is paramount, while understanding others is crucial—and difficult.
I used the Clarity Aloft set (not needing custom earpieces) with satisfaction until I bought Bose ProFlight Series 2 last year. With the Bose, the stock moldable earpieces are fine for me. With the Clarity Aloft, lacking active noise reduction, other pilots’ transmissions were difficult to understand.With the Bose, others’ transmissions can be understood clearly. In my opinion, I’m clearly safer with these.
My general headset/earpiece experiences are that for ANR and sound quality, the over-ear version is always superior. In my Mooney, I use over-ear active ANR headsets. I find the Bose earpieces to be fiddly and their performance is well worth the effort in my sailplane.
—Daniel L. Johnson, via email
Thanks for the useful feedback. As we’ve said in every headset report over the years, you have to try them before you buy them. If anyone else has experience using the Bose ProFlight in-ear model in a non-turbine aircraft, we’d like to hear about your experience for a headset satisfaction survey planned in a future issue of Aviation Consumer.
… And more on aspen displays
Interesting article about life with the Aspen Avionics Evolution flight displays in the November 2024 Aviation Consumer. Something I found intriguing was the assertion that the MAX is so much better. When I put Aspens in our Baron, I had the fortune to see the legacy and MAX units side-by-side before deciding which to install. I chose the legacy units primarily because they were half the cost of the MAX. After 11 years of flying behind them, as a single display in our A36 and dual display in our Baron, here are my thoughts:
There is no discernible difference in image quality between the two, the resolution is the same between them and the additional colors in the MAX is irrelevant.
The legacy, in practice, cannot run synthetic vision. It is so “ratchety” as to be utterly useless. I had it in our A36 Bonanza and never used it. Maybe the better processor of the MAX will allow it to actually run synthetic vision to be useful, though I feel that the feature itself is worthless; just an eye-candy gimmick.
As for reliability, in six years of owning the Bonanza the Aspen display never once hiccuped and was rock solid. However, with five years’ service in the Baron, both displays were replaced under warranty due to a “snowing” phenomenon on the displays. The replacements never gave us any problems.
While we recently sold the Baron and went back to a Bonanza (it’s a better fit for our changing mission), I wouldn’t hesitate to put Aspens in it when we do the panel updates. Right now, I’m mulling over them versus the Gamin G500 TXi display. Both have pros and cons. The only thing that would give me pause on the Aspen legacy units now is supportability, though that is somewhat rendered moot with the MAX upgrade capability.
As an aside, I recently saw an early rendition of Aspen’s engine monitor feature and I found it disappointing. They stuffed too much information onto one screen making it difficult to see anything except MP and Tach. Hopefully, they work on that.
—Chris Nichols, via email
Thanks for weighing in. As we noted in the article, we think Aspen field support is among the best in the market and we wouldn’t hesitate to put the products in, but still favor the current MAX model.