Bose A30 Aviation Headset, Lightweight Comfortable Design, Adjustable ANR and Noise Cancelling [U174] – Black

We have the A20's. This was an anniversary gift for my pilot partner. He owns a Piper Cherokee. He loves them. The fit is comfortable and we did a full IMC landing with no visibility with an unmanned tower and he loved being able to make the phonecall after a safe landing because it had bluetooth. A very happy purchase!

These have Bluetooth (another reviewer said they don’t).Great build quality, clear audio and mic, great noise cancellation, 6 pin is perfect for headset to be powered by aircraft (works perfectly on Cirrus SR20/22 G6 aircrafts).Comes with Bose soft shell case with a soft liner.

BrieflyI gave it 1 star because the product did not work as it should. At least the manufacturer should indicate "Not for helicopters"Details:I am a professional helicopter pilot and the A20 is part of my life. I have two now, one built into my helmet, and one for free wear.I read all the reviews before buying and honestly did not really believe in the negative ones. As soon as I got the A30, I jumped into the helicopter for 7 hours of work.The first impressions were very positive; I liked the non-slip plastic on the new battery compartment, the thin cable, and less pressure on the ears. Noise cancellation worked well.The first negative impression came after the first radio conversations. The sound of the ATC seemed very "dry", unnatural. I would say that the sound frequency range is shifted to the top (high frequencies prevail). In reality, I think this is the peculiarity of the digital processor.The worst thing happened later. At some point, the right earphone started making a Bang-bang-bang sound. It was very loud. Not only couldn't I hear the ATС, but it also was hitting my eardrum hard. It looks like the digital noise cancellation picked up some vibration or sound or both and started autoresonance. I tried for 20 minutes to fix it; I tried moving the headphones on my head, pressing them harder, but nothing helped. Eventually, I had to turn off the noise cancellation and continue the flight without it. It's good that there was no tense radio communication when this happened. Imagine that you went deaf because of a Bang-bang-bang somewhere in B airspace or were working in close proximity to other aerocrafts. It’s really not safe.

Excelent

I'm a rotorcraft CFI and this review may seem like it doesn't make sense at first glance but allow me to explain.This very well might be the best aviation headset available but it's sincerely not great. It's most certainly NOT worth "upgrading" from a fully functional A20 to this A30. It's a side grade at best and a downgrade depending on your preferences. My A20 died after about 13 years of use recently and so I got the A30.The A30's mic cable doesn't hold it's position. It's not rigid like pretty much every aviation headset I've ever used. You will move it into position near your mouth and then it springs back an inch or so and progressively more over time. Very strange oversight for a $1300 piece of communications equipment.It's a heavy headset, equally heavy as the A20 with an even bigger control module. Why, after over a decade, have you not figured out how to make this thing lighter, smaller, with a smaller module? Carbon fiber is a thing and for $1300, it should be the only thing this headset is comprised of.The noise cancelling and audio quality is the same or worse than the A20. Also, begs the question, why?Incidentally, I own the Bose quiet comfort 2 ear buds and their noise cancelling and audio quality for $300 destroys that of the A30 at $1k more. These tiny ear buds have better controls, better audio, more features, and they're 1/50th the size and weight.Are the engineers in the aviation division of Bose not allowed to chat with the music consumer division? After about a 3 minute chat they would have figured out the A30 is outdated before they even released it for sale.There's no excuse for the cables to be this size and this heavy either. They made the mic cable lighter and less rigid but kept the same heavy gauge input cable..I also hate the power button and Bluetooth button, this should be a hard switch given this giant control module with 3 hard switches on it.Everything they gave us new with this headset is severely over rated to useless. Adjustable hard switch for ANC intensity? Hard switch for Bluetooth volume? Spinning ear cups for all those cooked heads out their complaining about non spinning ear cups?I've ranted long enough. The Bose aviation team is pulling an Apple with this product and just living off their past reputation as being the best headset and made minor useless feature additions to lure customers into needlessly giving them another $1300 for the same thing they already have.It might be the best, but it's only half way up and the bar is very very low.

Background: I fly helis with doors on and doors off operations. Have 90% of my flight time on Bose A20s and what I'm basing this review on. I've also received feedback from a Helicopter Network Facebook page to see if it might have just been my headset and to get others opinions on them, and they all have had the same experience.For $1,300 you expect quality, not them throwing a product out and trying to cut their costs by using cheaper materials and still expecting you to pay the same price.I will be returning them, and sticking with my A20s.Pros:The design and the look is nicer.The headband cushion is more comfortable.Cons:Feels cheap and not durable. (Headset and the controller on the cable is cheap plastic. The switches on the controller have so much play in them. The cable is also really thin and unrealistically long)The noise canceling is hot garbage. (I hear so much wind noise and the bad feedback. Almost like a "thump thump thump". It's almost like bose didn't do testing in doors off operations for helis.)The sound coming through the headset was terrible compared to the A20. It sounds like an old radio and not crystal clear like the A20s.The case is a step down from the A20s case. (No outer pocket, no licenses holder, and no extra battery holder. Although, i will say the material is nicer quality)