Peltor Hearing Protection Ear Muffs Black

I bought these on Amazon day and had high hopes for them as the Peltor name usually scoffs at some of the budget offerings of Howard Leight and Walkers. Having used both electronic Howard Leights Impact Sport and their passive L3s I thought these would be an obvious upgrade. I had brought both the Peltors and Impact Sport ear muffs to the range in case something was off with the Peltors and I'm so glad I did. One of the reviews mentioned that it "mutes" the sound and that stuck with me as "mute" is not the term you want to use for electronic ear muffs. You want "cancellation" or "reduction" as the operating word. But no, these mute. Every gunshot they mute. Imagine me walking into the shooting bay wearing the Peltors, dropping off my gear, grabbing my Howard Leights, and walking back out into the check-in area. That's what I did and that's how long I wore them total (aside from test fitting at home). Every sound dropped dramatically per gunshot and rose slowly back to level. And if there were two consecutive gunshots, the sound would drop, then rise, and drop (ie mute) on the second gun shot and then rise. And if there were three, four, twenty. You get the point. I don't know if there is a sensitivity feature to these but maybe they fare better outdoors, but indoors where loud sounds can't travel away, the Peltors drop the volume every single instance. So holding a conversation would be disheartening to do while using these. So I used them for about 30 seconds before I decided they were not going to work. In fact today, that's the reason I leave this review...the range officer that I spoke to as I walked out of the range to swap ear muffs that day came up to me today and said "hey are these the ones you bought? I lost mine and had to buy these today. What did you do to fix them? They are driving me crazy". I said "I returned them and bought another pair of these (pointing to my Howard Leights)." The HLs cap the loudness level, not mute the audio so anything under the threshold of loudness comes through normally, but anything over is brought down below the threshold. This is why you can hold a conversation while gunfire is going on with them. The Peltors do not do that. It mutes the entire audio signal to well below hearing level (exterior noise is audible though) and rises the volume of the entire audio back up. But here's the catch. They are way more comfortable than the Howard Leights, and seal better. So if you are outdoors, using them passive, or using them for yard work or wood working where you aren't expected to keep being loud while having a conversation, these are a great option, especially if you get the deal on Amazon day (I think I paid $41 vs the $69 normal). But I just bought a set of $18 gel pads for the HLs and that was all that was needed to bring them up to par with the Peltors. Maybe their higher end models are better, but these didn't work for my needs of shooting at an indoor range.