Peltor Sport Tactical 500 Bluetooth Hearing Protection Ear Muffs, One-Size, 1 Pair of Ear Muffs

This review is for Peltor Sport Tactical 500 Smart Electronic Hearing Protector with Bluetooth Wireless Technology, NRR 26 dB. What initially brought me to order this set was the outstanding reviews (both customer and professional), high NRR rating, digital voice listening (for person-to-person communication), and wanting Bluetooth capability for phone/multimedia interactions. I'm going to break this review up into sections.Pros:This set has a high 26 dB NRR rating. This is one of the higher NRR ratings I have seen for headphones. Since they are headphones, you can wear them with earplugs to further increase your ear protection. I have been able to wear these for an hour at a time without any issue. I have not tried them longer than that. These are quite adjustable for a large range of head sizes. The headphones do collapse for better storage, and they come with a nice storage bag. These also feel sturdy and appear to be very well constructed. These fit fine with thin safety glasses. I have not done much with the Bluetooth functionality or the digital voice communication. These have auto power shut off and lower battery warning.Cons:These headphones are a bit on the bulky side. They are definitely not the bulkiest out there, and they aren't obnoxiously bulky. However, there are applications where they could be in the way that you may need thin headphones or earplugs for instead. The headphones are medium in weight. They are definitely not heavy, but if you need to wear these for hours continuously, you might start to notice the weight. The padded cups don't feel very comfortable at first, and they apply a fair amount of pressure. It takes me a bit of positioning to get them into a comfortable position so that they aren't applying pressure to my temples, so that I don't get a headache.Other Thoughts:Overall, these are outstanding headphones for hearing protection. They are feature rich, very adjustable, high NRR rating, and well made. I don't really have much to say about the price, because I find the price to be equal to the quality and feature set. Therefore, I find the value to be good for the price. I ordered the ALPHA1100 rechargeable Li-ion battery pack for these headphones, and I definitely recommend this battery over 2 AA batteries. I do regret not ordering the gel replacement earcups. I have gel replacement earcups for a different set of hearing protection headphones, and they make a big difference. The gel replacement earcups are far more comfortable, provide a better seal, especially with safety glasses on, and they have the potential to offer a slight increase in NRR. This potential NRR increase is possible by achieving a better seal (particularly with glasses on), the material used, and the double hump design (allows two chances to create a complete seal).Update - 10/21/2023I finally upgraded the stock ear pads on the 3M Peltor Sport Tactical 500 to PROHEAR gel ear pads. It was immediately a significant improvement. The noise reduction was noticeably improved. The gel pads are more comfortable, and they seal much better, especially with glasses on. Each gel pad is about 1mm thicker than the stock pads. I looked at both the gel pads with and without the replacement plastic base. I went with the version without the plastic base, only because they were a bit softer. I'm going to assume it just happened to be a sample variance, and that normally they are both the same. To install I peeled off the original pad, no tools required. I removed the original adhesive residue from the plastic base. Then I did a dry lineup of the new ear pad, removed the adhesive cover, and installed the new pads.I can also say that the digital capabilities for listening with the built-in microphone and speakers is excellent. I am able to hear everything just fine while having hearing protection. It is also very good about muting loud noises but keeping speech audible. I'm also able to hear the digital output (speech/sounds) just fine with earplugs in. This is great, because I can get a very high level of hearing protection, while having very good situational awareness. I would never consider anything other than digital headphones for hearing protection.

tried many headset for my work environment and this is the real winner and well worth buy when it was on sale for me. i bought extras like rechargeable battery that is specific for this headset including a soft gel ear pads all worth buying and i have no regrets so far.

Purchased two of these. One works well, the other appears to be previously opened from the bottom of the box and does not turn on.The 5 stars is for the performance of the working one, Just watch out for Amazon delivering previously opened, broken ones, apparently.

These work well.

Use these on the pad. Modified them to fit a cold weather hard hat set up I like to use for about 6 months out of the year. Just buy the 3M helmet attachement arms, disassemble the stock headband set up and BOOM, helmet phones. Nothing is perfect and they definitely don't do everything I want, but I'm forgiving because they are being adapted for a use case they weren't specifically designed for. Definitely replace the ear cups with gel. Always first thing I do with peltors. I'm a veteran peltor user. I own multiple sets of Defenders and Comtac VI so I am very familiar with their higher end sets. This is a decent solution for the job site unless you need to be synced to a crew radio frequency. For me, being an electrician and mostly generating my own work flow and coordinating with only 2-5 people I find this to be a good option that balances the need for situational awareness on the job and the desire to have my phone synced for podcasting and taking calls as needed. The ability of the phones to pick out and enhance spoken language audio from the crew even against the backdrop of all the loud equipment running on site is impressive. Again, not perfect, just the best I've found. Even better engineered than my Comtacs for this purpose. Also, wind interference has been the deal breaker on most of the sets I've tried out here in the open plains. Most sets can't hold up to wind at all and all you hear the entire time is the wind. Even some dude talking 3ft in front of you may as well be a mile away he won't cut through the wind audio and you will hear literally nothing he said. These Peltors though... Best yet at being able to take wind blasts into the mic and still be able to pick up spoken audio. Sure you hear the wind like always, but now with these I can finally hear the crew without having to turn my head to cut the wind noise and ask them to say it again for the hundredth time. That's all I really wanted and while it's not perfect it's the only one I've found that actually seems to do the job. It wasn't like this was a little improvement..., basically nothing else really worked and now these do so it feels like a pretty big win. If anyone reading this work the cold oil Field and gets bad ear and eye related migraines from the cold weather you know what I'm talking about. You can buy a cheap $40 set of double paned snowboard goggles on Amazon to add to your head coverings and you will have a warm and fog free set up all winter.

The foam ear pads were replaced with Gel. Very comfortable after long periods of wearing them. Very easy to set up and use. I would recommend this model for sure.

Great gift! Really works

Comfort: checkBuild: checkFeatures: checkSuch a great set of ears that lets you maintain situational awareness and keeps those drums safe. The bluetooth isnt the best quality but lets be honest, when throwing freedom pellets the music/podcast isnt the priority, but its a welcome addition to the range day.