Pro Ears Pro Tac Slim Gold Series - Type N

First off they are HUGE! Nothing slim about them. My $45 Walker’s Razor muffs are half the size. They do not fold up any way that makes them compact. On my head I feel like mr potato head. I took a few pics to illustrate the difference.Secondly, design must have been done by a caveman. The battery compartments are inside the muff with no cover. Just a flap of foam over the batteries. A tap on the outside of the muff from heavy rifle recoil can knock the batteries loose and they’ll rattle around in there till they fall out when you take the muffs off.Third, the sound is as tinny and cheap as a third rate honkytonk jukebox. Harsh highs and I couldn’t trigger the sound cutoff with anything short of a gunshot. No idea why anyone would want dual volume controls but I guess some might. No noise cancellation I could hear. When I turned both sides off, the sound reduction was rather poor. Not something I’d want to use with rifle shots. Might be ok with low powered handgun rounds. To be fair I did t even take them to the range. I knew I didn’t want them within 10 minutes of opening the box.Fourth, comfort was pathetic. Maybe my head is weird shaped but I wouldn’t wear them for any length of time on the range.

Very nice but I do recommend changing the jumper inside to boost the volume otherwise it sounds a bit tinny.

Let me first talk about what I do like, then follow with what I don't like, followed by an explanation of my rating.DID LIKEFeels hefty/good quality - Overall the feel of the headphones (minus the strap, see below) feel very durable and of good construction. Some of my perception is derived from the heft, which may or may not be accurate. I'm not a scientist.The knobs - Changing the volume is easy to do while using the product. They are large, slip-free, and dont seem to be in the way. I Like them.Comfortable (except tight) - This product is comfortable (excepting the tightness, see below) in the sense that the material used to seal between your head and the plastic shell is pleasant and can be worn comfortably for hours.DIDN't LIKEThe Head Band snaps on a whim - Here is the major weakness of this product. The quality of the head band is far far far below the quality of the rest of the product. Its as if they spent a bunch of R&D time and dollars on everything except the head band, for whatever reason, the team that was tasked with engineering and building the head band opted to outsource the material and engineering to Toys R Us and when they got the first prototype back they were like "yup, this is perfect! Go to production!"Ear cup sealing rings are delicate - The material that I fawned over above (see Do Like > Comfortable, above) seems to have the durability qualities of a marshmallow. I grabbed these ear muffs off my chair, and the material caught on the underside lip of the back-rest on the chair, which caused it to tear. Sure, it wasn't designed to be used this way, but given the very low impact movement I would not expect it to cause a tear. Also, this part is not covered under the warranty.False advertisement: There is a Youtube video out there which is titled "Pro Ears Demo" which at the time of this writing has 12,034 views and is published by what appears to be the Pro Ears Youtube channel. In this video a man talks us through the noise cancelling characteristics a consumer can expect when using the Pro Ears Gold product vs other electronic headphone technology. The main point made is that due to the "compression" technique they use, casual conversation is not drowned out by the sharp report of a firearm. Meaning, if you are talking and someone fires a round in the exact moment you say "false advertising" you would hear "false advertising." Disappointingly, I found that when this type of scenario played out on the range, all i could hear was "--- advertising", meaning, you still have to ask people to repeat themselves if a shot happens to ring out in the exact moment a word is spoken. I tried max volume to see if that changed anything, and it did not. What I'm getting at is that this product grandly fails to function as advertised. Granted, the functionality of the product is still okay in my book, but before purchasing, my expectations were set at level 10 for this feature, and it delivered at level 5; thus the feelings of betrayal that I now nurse when I contemplate the life choice I made in purchasing this product.Tight (but comfortable) - Remember the Toys R Us headband that is used in this product? I'm assuming this is the reason that it feels so tight. Meaning, it compresses your head a bit, and might cause a slight head ache if worn for 4-8 hours (training class or competition, etc).Warranty coverage - Go find the warranty page and read through what is covered. There are a number of things that in my mind should be covered, but they are not. Here is a sample of what you'll find "ITEMS NOT COVERED BY THE WARRANTY INCLUDE: ear cup grommets, sealing rings, microphone covers, foam battery covers, volume control knobs, batteries, battery terminals." -- There is more, and I recommend reading it to get an idea of how it works. I don't know if this is industry standard or not, so take this with a grain of salt.My Rating:1 stars off for false advertising (really want to take 2 off, but I'm feeling nice today because last night I broke my foot)1 star off for building a great product with enough weak points as to drive the overall experience into a mediocre categoryYou may want to ask yourself if this product is worth the cost of entry.

Have not had a chance to use them yet but everyone I have talked to say they are really great. So with that said I will write my first comments and update later. First they seem well constructed but I wish they had metal muff attachment points. That would be a little more durable in my opinion. It would also be nice if they folded into a smaller footprint for travel, like the ones from 3M. Something this expensive should have come with a plastic case to protect them, which goes back to the ability to fold them up.The sound seems well amplified but a bit tinny and not quite real world. I would rather have had shorter battery life due to more dynamic speakers. Pro Ears uses the same volume control knob for each side. So when you turn up the volume on one side you may turn the volume down on the other unless you remember which direction. I think that they should have been set to have both either rotate the same direction when you put both hands on them at the same time. Less confusing to me at least. The ear pads seem really soft and make a nice seal. With that said thats all for my first impressions.

What can I say. I love the way they shut off if I forget to turn them off. I've had them a couple of months with the orginal batteries.

After trying a few pairs I kinda think they are over priced. They work well but about the same as some of the walker game ears.

When I tried on the ear muffs the first time, the plastic headband snapped completely apart near the middle. I have returned them and reordered another pair. Hopefully, that was a very unusual occurence due to a flaw in the material. On the other hand, a noise protection ear muff that costs this much should be made strong enough so this will not happen....perhaps with metal bands running through the plastic cover as seen in most communications headsets.