PeltorSport Tactical 500 Bluetooth Hearing Protection Ear Muffs, 26 dB Noise Reduction Rating, Electronic Hearing Protection Headphones for Shooting, Hunting, Mowing, Construction, Concerts, & More

Great product. great compression, Bluetooth, Very comfortable ear cups. The headband for fat heads like mine need work, but does definitely fit big heads, yet just a tad on the uncomfortable side. I put a padded headband on from my passive earmuff collection. Very simple to pair up with Bluetooth , and very easy to shuffle through songs with jack cord... answer and reject, and end calls just by pushing the BT logo on earcup. Works great with HY80 ear seals . Of course I put fleece in mine. Great mics pick up voice, when taking calls ...nothing in front of your mouth. (That doesn't bother me though.) Little LED light lets you know what function the earmuffs are in...voice assist is great, and by pressing the BT Logo and power button at the same time, you can cut on or off certain features. I will be testing out the voice aspect at work, and soon will test out the noise compression, shooting my 40 cal and shotguns. Worth every penny...I highly recommend this headset, and I gave it 5 stars, despite the funny feeling headband. Its very easy to change it out to the padded headband for the passives. A small Philips head works great. You gotta get it, and great for shooting and mowing, and work, industrial ...alot applications for this headset. A must have. Picks up background noise. The Alert and ProTac XP don't do that. Only thing besides headband that really needs work.

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.

Bluetooth sound is a bit quiet, basically have to turn ambient pass through to lowest setting to hear it, but decent quality. Comfortable to wear for hours, excluding hot and sweaty ears due to the trapped body heat.Good noise protection though. I wore them 30-40 hours a week for a year at work, where I am around loud machinery all day.Lower score due to the side where the left ear cup is mounted to the head band snapping the other day when i took them off. The clip to hold it broke out, and the end of the band that holds the adjustable wire frame snapped open. Managed to force it back in place, but it breaks open anytime outward pressure is placed on it, like when putting it on or off.Edit- bumping the score up. I did put a lot of wear on the unit, up to and including banging them against steel on more than one occasion. It only broke at a small plastic clip that holds the earcup in place, the part with likely the most wear out of the entire unit. Good product, I honestly bought another whrn the first broke straight away+2

I've had years of esperience with Peltor hearing protectors and when my old hearing protectors "gave up the ghost", I decided to purchase these because of some added features. As hearing protectors and cancelers of sudden loud noises, (translates gunfire) these work great. I have only two small complaints: 1- the instruction sheet provided in the package is one step above worthless in that alot of the functions have to be figured out by trial and error. I ordered an on-line owner's manual which was to be sent to me but after an entire day -- nothing received. 2- The supplied instruction sheet states that a charging cable with a "micro-USB connector" is supplied for connecting a lithium battery pack -- not true! I received a USBC connector which will not mate with the micro-USB connection in the headset. Another $8 spent on an adapter (USBC/micro-USB) solved the issue. The bluetooth connection to my iPhone seemed to take several minutes longer than it should have, but seems to work fine. 3M has been producing these Peltor headsets for about 30 years and should have their act together by now.