Hey guys,
I hope to answer some questions about this topic for you. I am the sales and marketing guy here at WildEar.....before you jump the gun about me being bias, let me just tell you what we have, and you can decide based on your needs.
The WildEar electronic system is custom fit hearing protection and enhancement. You can control the volume using the push buttons on the side based on your situation. We stayed away from the old school volume wheel as there is more opportunity for failure and requires the units to be sent in for repair. Similar to dog collars breaking in the fall, they don't do you much good when they are in for service along when you are trying to use them.
In the training world, enough to communicate with other folks and leave it at that. In a hunting situation you can turn the volume all the way up to your specific needs. The protection is going to be the same no matter what volume level you are on. Any sound above 90dB will be suppressed to a safe level using the compression technology. I use my set for both training my dogs and hunting and they work wonderfully.
The battery life is the next topic that should be considered. We use a size 13 battery in our unit and that is approx 500 hours of run life. Other systems on the market will use a size 10 or 312 and that is significantly less battery life. We have bought all the other units and tested them so we have a pretty good idea of performance on all of them. I am not going to be naming other competitors units as I am not trying to bash anyone.
We also include a lanyard on our system so you can protect the investment and not misplace these things or have them end up in a pocket or something like that. I will add here, most of our competition is copying this now so we must be doing something right. We also give you a Pelican 1020 case to keep your set in while you aren't wearing them. The other guys give you a little zipper pouch that can misplaced as soon as they come in the mail.
As for waterfowl hunting and calling, you will still be able to blow your calls without the huge call distortion since our system reduces the harmful sounds instead of totally eliminating all the noise.
For the folks that don't want to spend the money on the electronic systems, we also make custom fit plugs without electronics in them. The mold process is the same as the electronic systems. We will send you at "At Home" kit to do your molds and you return those back to us in the mail and we build off of that. This is majority of our business and do it daily. If you dont feel comfortable having the wife or your buddy do the molds, then you can do to the local audiologist and they will make the molds for you there and you can return those back to us. Whatever you are comfortable with.
The custom fit aspect is the way to go. Make the investment and get something that is build specifically for your ears, not something that is 18 different canal tips and try your hardest to make them work....
We offer a 2 year warranty and 30 day money back guarantee which is our demo period so you can make sure they work for your application.
More info can be found at wildear.com or you can give me a call and I would be happy to answer your specific questions.
zach.meyer@wildear.com
855-494-9453