Executive summary: Expensive and heavy ear-pro that has amazing sound and good build, but poor customer support and will NOT fit everybody, so I can't recommend them unless you can try them out first and know 100% they fit.
OK, now the details.
Disclaimer: These things are EXPENSIVE, but for those of us who spend a lot of time trying to protect what hearing we still have and do have the resources, I think it’s worth looking at the top-end gear from time to time.
I have some hearing damage from machinery and construction and don’t process sounds particularly well at the best of times. So, while wearing foam plugs and putting some cheap Peltors or whatever over that works fine if I’m alone at the range, but as I dip a toe into competition shooting and group training, being able to hear well enough to have a conversation is pretty important for my participation and even safety. In addition, I was looking for something that would have more general utility; comms integration, wearing around the shop and perhaps folks don’t “sneak up” on me while I’m head-down at the tools.
Of course, do any real looking and you quickly arrive at the place where it seems to be Com-Tacs and then some other stuff.
One of the issues with the early CT at least is it’s nearly impossible to take them off the headband to run on a helmet and then put them back.
While digging through almost Comm-Tacs and honorable mentions, I noticed the Ops Core AMP. They come in a connector-ized form, so you can run no cables or cables. They go on and come off the headband readily, and the mic unplugs. So, if you really want one set of do-everything earpro, these looked like a good option. They also get very high marks for stereo reproduction, spatial representation, and general sound quality. The thing that was the special-extra trick was the inductive earplug option. Particularly if you are at indoor ranges one layer of ear-pro just won’t cut it, adding the distortion and whatnot of the electronics it’s hard to hear your electronic muffs through your inner plugs, or at least I really struggle. What this set does is you can plug special earplugs in and the muffs will inductively transmit the sound into your plugs rather than use the muffs speakers!
I suspect other brands will manage about the same functionality with bluetooth any day now, but I like this system since the plugs have no batteries or need of electronics.
Anyway, I took the plunge and they finally arrived. First impressions:
Very high build quality.
comfortable ear cups.
Pretty low profile for what they are.
Then putting them on:
Heavy! They are 425G compared to the Peltor Sport/tactical/whatever at 287G. So about a 1/3 weight increase on one’s head. That’s not great.
More headband tension than I’m used to, it helps offset the felt weight and seals the ear-cups more firmly but I do worry about long-term comfort. I was able to wear them around the shop for a few hours without much discomfort, so I suspect they are on-par with most of my other muffs in that regard.
The user interface kinda blows. The way you have to use the buttons is a bit poorly set up, there isn’t good “repeat” on the buttons, and the annunciation tone is just needlessly loud.
The audio reproduction works very well. It’s not bionic ears, but the sound is pretty natural and the spatial imaging really is very good. It’s a bit like being in a space with pronounced echos, but you do get a good sense of where sounds are coming from and even a bit of what they are bouncing off of. The sound dampening is interesting, normal sounds at normal distances come through fine, but rather than the clipping of cheap muffs, these roll off or compress the sound in a pretty seamless manner. The odd artifact seems to be that it almost seems like as a noise comes closer it gets quieter rather than louder, so that’s a bit disorienting.
read about a recording technique years ago where they put the microphones inside the fake ear canals of a fake head to reproduce three-dimensional imaging in a recording. I can only assume that’s what they are doing here. The imaging and sound is slightly off because you are hearing through the ears of the model and they are some nominal ears. If you had a mold made of your ears and put mics at the bottoms of those, I’m sure the imaging would be even better.
Also worth noting: if you buy something from ops-core, they will give you a code for 10 or 15% off your next purchase, so it might be best to break any orders up into a small preliminary order and the main one.
The earplugs are pretty impressive. The foam surround is a weirdly viscus foam that I suspect will hold up well and the seal is very impressive. I had tried several brands and sizes of disposable plugs to find one that provided better noise reduction than the others by a considerable margin, but these were better than even those by a fair margin. They aren’t quite as comfortable though, but still not bad when worn by themselves. When worn alone they are prone to a bit of wind-noise. I’m not sure if this is picked up from the retention cord or the small holes in them to accommodate that cord but it is a thing when they are worn without the headset.
So, what about the combo? It’s pretty amazing is the bottom line. You put in the plugs and the world goes very quiet, you put the muffs on and any remaining noise is gone. This is some deep quiet, just bone-induction and mechanical noise left. Then you turn the set on and the world comes back. I can’t say the spatial imaging is better, but it’s not noticeably worse. I suspect the delta between the distance between the microphones and the speakers being somewhat greater makes for a slightly less correct image, but you get better time-domain resolution. Anyway, whatever the particulars are, the imaging is still amazingly good. The sound quality is better not having to listen through foam plugs, so it’s very natural in tone, just a very slight white-noise hiss to the sound. It’s really weird having to put your muffs ON to hear. You lift and ear cup and the sound from that ear actually goes away!
The sound is good enough and with the muffs working with the plugs rather than against them as with passive plugs, that if you turn up the sound a little you get a slight sense of being an apex predator, just a little more aware of your world than before. This is of course the polar opposite of one’s normal experience in ear-pro and I had to turn things down as not to distract me during the range session.
There is some wind-noise in higher wind. Not bad, but it is present.
Now the bad news, which is that it doesn’t fit me all that well. the factory ear cups don’t allow quite enough clearance to not have the NFMI earplugs clear without some pressure that becomes painful after a couple hours. This is of course a physiological aspect that some people will suffer from and others will not, but it does seem that in striving for the lowest profile ear-cups possible for better fin under helmets, they overshot at least of some of us. I’ll reach out and see if there are thicker cups available. The headband tension combined with the small cups does make the set uncomfortable for me, so I’d wholeheartedly recommend finding a way to try it out without spending the money is you possibly can. I really hope they can help me out with some larger cups or else I’m going to have to improvise. Either way, it’s a lot lot money to spend to have uncomfortable gear and where they did send multiple sizes of foam for the earplugs, they should really have thought about the earcup foam situation better and either included a couple sizes or made sizes available without it being a contact them to inquire deal.
One month later…
I contacted Ops-Core about downlead pinout information and got no reply. Then I contacted them about larger earcups or earcup spacers and was told they don’t offer anything to help me and I should basically try to shove them deeper in my ear.
Also, despite the AMP being sold as a slim design that would fit more easily under a helmet, when I asked about a mid-cut helmet recommendation I was told it would likely press the headset against my head uncomfortably.
Further, they are apparently closing out the mid-cut helmets.
So, unresponsive or unhelpful support and a diminishing product line where the teams don’t communicate amongst each other. Add to that I now have a headset that cost a small fortune but I can’t wear comfortably for more than an hour or two at a time and I’m going to recommend folks NOT buy one of these unless you are positive it will fit you and you don’t need any but the most basic support going forward.
I do still find the sound quality and such to be outstanding.
I anticipate some ghetto mod involving double-stick foam tape about 1/8" thick being in my future.
Ops-Core AMP connectorized headset experience
Linear Mode
