Thread: Electronic Ear Muffs

If you are buying the Barricade electronic ear muffs for $59 from GC this weekend, make sure you keep the receipt. I just bought a pair and the right side doesn't work and the right hand battery in the right side gets very hot. I'll be taking them back Monday for a replacement, hopefully they aren't all like that.

About as good as I would expect from a $59 pair of electronic muffs. You’d be better off buying decent non electronic muffs.


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I went to buy good E-muffs a couple of years when GC had them for close to $300. A Google search showed exact same model available online from an industrial safety gear provider for $86. Use them all the time still including last two days at Nth Island IPSC Handgun Champs where I observe the model is quite common...hopefully not all bought from GC.

Really, there are electronic ear muffs and electronic ear muffs. I've had a few, the gold standard usually come down to two brands in most peoples opinions once they've tried everything. There's Sordin and Peltor, now owned by MSA and 3M respectively.

One of the reasons that these two brands get the reputation is in sealing and longevity of the electronics for corrosion, and audio performance of the noise cancelling and internal microphone/speaker circuits. Not to say anything negative about the GC brand above - as I haven't had any experience of them at all but I would be expecting they would be similar to the other products in the price range I've tried. My current sets of Peltor gear include a Tactical Pro set which is rated Grade 5 for industry, several sets of listen-only Peltors for hard connecting to radios and a couple of sets of two-way comms earmuffs. My latest is a full two-way comms headset with built in UHF 433MHz radio and external ambient sound - two way radio is useless for me with the frequency but the rest of it's features are great. With the ambient listening set to '1' it's normal conversation, on '6' I can hear a cricket fart at 100m (I'm not kidding...). But retail for that is circa $2K for the latest version with bluetooth, not that I paid anywhere near that!

second for peltor- mine is 15 yrs old , the sheath on the cables are shot - but they still work
Howard Leight can be ok as a cheap option

Originally Posted by Sharki

second for peltor- mine is 15 yrs old , the sheath on the cables are shot - but they still work
Howard Leight can be ok as a cheap option

I use the Howard leight FM ones use out side in the rain all the time & they last bot 2 years off hard use & the battery pack lid needs to be screwed on with some self tapers

Peltors as well. 12 years old or so. Taken a hammering. I'll replace with the same thing if they crap out

So, somewhat surprisingly, quality is correlated with price! Who would have thunk?

Sordin. Get the gel cups as extras if you do. High grade muffs.


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Originally Posted by Dicko

Sordin. Get the gel cups as extras if you do. High grade muffs.


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The best there is. I've just "refeshed" my Supreme Pro X with the gel kit.
Don't take an el cheapo approach to ear protection.
@andyanimal31 summed up the Howards in the last thread.

I bought some electronic muffs from GC once in a trademe auction. Once side failed fairly quickly.

The cable quality is surprisingly variable - apparently the insulation on cheaper cables is some form of non-heat resistant plastic that doesn't have the resilience to flexing that the more expensive stuff has. Opening them up shows a lot about the costs of construction - the Peltor stuff has fully sealed boards and the like whereas the cheaper sets don't. The other point of difference with the more expensive brands is in the mounting and sealing of the foam around the microphone elements and of the microphones themselves.

I bought some cheap electronic ear muffs from Ali express for $30 and they go bloody well and have lasted 2 years so far with no issues.

I’ve also used peltors, they are certainly a step up so you definitely get what you pay for.