bluetooth Archives

Preface

Technology continues to work into our shooting experience. And today I present to you another new to me product that brings more electronic gizmos into the shooting realm. Our subject today is the Walkers Game Ear Suppressor Bluetooth Earbuds. These are electronic bluetooth earbuds that have the noise cancelling Walkers is famous for, with all the added benefits that your typical earbuds also give.

Walkers Game Ear Suppressor

Walkers is famous for the ability to not only protect your hearing, but amplify your surroundings at the same time. This has typically been more for hunters than shooters. The Suppressor Bluetooth Earbuds offer the next level of both protection, situational awareness, and even entertainment.

With omnidirectional stereo sound from four microphones, the Suppressors give you 25 DB protection from gunfire. While also providing you connection to your surroundings, and even the ability to enhance those sounds.

Not only does it come with various sizes of foam and silicone tips for maximum comfort, they also allow four different frequencies of sound to customize your hearing experience. All this in a wireless rechargeable earbud set much like those all the cool kids are wearing these days. And like the popular kids, you can charge these up to three times in their discreet battery powered case. The case can also be charged via a USB-C included cord.

As if all that wasn’t enough, you can customize your listening experience on the fly using the Walkers Link 4.0 application on your phone to adjust balance, volume and the differential between your favorite tunes playing by bluetooth and the ambient noise around you.

Controlling the Suppressor Earbuds

Aside from directly operating the earbuds through the app, you can also adjust the volume, skip songs, and change hearing settings all by touching the control surfaces on the exterior of the earbuds.

You can also adjust the auto-off setting between 2, 4, and 6 hours. Or not at all. You can balance between your ears if you choose as well.

Sound Quality

As an earbud, these are fantastic. The quality of the music sound played from my phone is as good as other comparably priced earbuds I borrowed from my wife.

Additionally, the sounds picked up by the microphones are also impressive. As I type this out, I can hear the keystrokes over the music playing at an aggressive volume. I could also hear my wife’s phone playing a video inside another room with a closed door.

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Fit and Feel

The various ear canal gaskets give you various options. I tend to prefer the foam ones as the silicone ones seem to work loose on me. The foam plugs are a bit stiffer and keep a good grip inside your ear, aided by the rubber rib mounted under the plug. If you have sensitive ears, the silicone plugs might be better as they don’t press out against your ear canal as hard.

These Suppressor Earbuds do stick out a little further than I’d like. Its not like I’m gonna be snagging them against tree limbs or something. But they are out there enough that you could brush them loose when adjusting your beenie or glasses. This is certainly not a deal breaker, but something to be aware of.

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On the Range

I’ve used these earbuds on the range several times now, in addition to my wearing around the house and office to listen to music. They do a great job keeping the noise of firearms down. As someone who wore foamie ear-plugs for the majority of my shooting career, these feel like they cancel the noise just as good as any foamie might. With the added benefit of being able to hear those around you, in stereo. It also allows me to listen to John Wick Mode by Castlevania while I do reloads with my Staccato.

Pros and Cons

There are very few cons that I found with these earbuds. I mentioned the slight protrusion from the ear, and the possibility of the foam pressing out against your ear canal. Other than that I can confidently say they knocked it out of the park with these earbuds. I remember nearly a decade ago paying twice this much for custom fitting electronic ear protection. Only to find within the first few minutes that they were slightly worse than foamies, and were always dead with expensive batteries.

In Closing

My conversion to electronic hearing protection is fairly recent. But I don’t think I’ll be using foamies anytime soon short of an emergency. I quite enjoy these earbuds, and look forward to more days at the range wearing them. If you are looking for electronic hearing protection, these might be right up your ear canal, especially if you like accompaniment.

-CBM

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Preface

It would be foolish of someone who shoots often, to not take proper precautions for their safety. When I was younger, I didn’t think about it much and looking back I sure wish that I had. Protecting eyes and ears while shooting has never been more easy, with technology and materials giving us many options. Today I am bringing you my opinion of another one of those options. Shell Shock Protection is a manufacturer of safety equipment for shooters, and today I present to you their Shell Shock Ultimate Eyes and Ears Combo. Just like it sounds, this kit comes with everything you need for shooting protection.

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Shell Shock Ultimate Eyes and Ears Combo

The Shell Shock kit comes with a set of their EXO PRO Bluetooth Earmuff’s and a pair of Switch Ballistic Glasses. These items come with a few additional accessories in a tidy little soft-case lined with foam and enclosed by a zipper.

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The EXO PRO Bluetooth Earmuff

Pulling the EXO Pro muffs from the case, I was happy to see they use a gel cup for comfort. My other headsets also have this feature so I was both aware of and pleased by it. The ear cups fold out from the wire headband making them compact to stow and quick to deploy. The headset came with a set of AAA batteries and an AUX cord for plumbing in audio to the headset.

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In addition to the dual omnidirectional microphones, the EXO Pro also has a Bluetooth connection feature. This allows you to connect your phone or other device to the headset to listen to music or in my case a conference call while sitting on a shooting bench. There are two individual volume knobs to adjust the BT volume and the ambient sounds.

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Switch Ballistic Glasses

The Switch Ballistic Glasses come with two lenses, a shaded one for bright sunny days, and a clear lens for indoors. The lenses can be switched out of the frame by unlocking two levers on each side of the frame before swapping the lens. There is also a handy protective cinch-close carry liner to protect the glasses from being scratched or damaged.

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The lenses are coated to prevent fogging, and of course they are rated Z87 for protection against flying debris that could damage your eyesight.

On the Range

As I shoot pretty often, it wasn’t long before I put the kit to use. Both indoor shooting and out door shooting would be involved. I typically shoot suppressed, which arguably doesn’t often require hearing protection. But I like to shoot handguns unsuppressed, and you definitely want ears for that.

I found the headset to fit just fine, and the gel cups felt soft against my face. One of the nice things about the gel cups is that they easily form around the temple arms of the glasses. I dislike when a headset crushes the temple arms of my glasses causing discomfort of the ear. The gel cups balanced the pressure against your head without pressing too hard, and still making a good seal.

The dual microphone pickups on the EXO Pro do a great job of picking up the sound around you, and blocking out what you don’t want to hear. I did notice that there seemed to be a bit higher frequency of sound picked up by the microphones, making it sound slightly more shrill sounding than I’d anticipated. Of course I had to fire up the BT receiver on the EXO Pro, so I could listen to my jams while I shot.

With the Switch Ballistic Glasses on, I found something that is typical of personal protective equipment. Not everybody’s face is the same, and I found that the glasses rode a smidge high on my nose for my taste. Requiring me to keep them further out on my nose, this leaves a little more gap than I’d like around the eyes. I think I can correct the issue by altering the removeable nose-pad some. Either way, glasses always fit depending on how your face is built. The lenses were nice, and the dark lens wasn’t as dark as many of my other sunglasses which made it easy to find targets. Switching out the lenses was quick and easy, though I am afraid I’d be more likely to lose one of them. Perhaps I should just get another frame.

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Finding pistol sights and red dots through the lenses was easy, and it does feel good to have something between my eyes and all the bullet spall and debris flying around the range.

Pros and Cons

I mentioned the fit of the glasses not being perfect for my face, but that’s just life when you look like I do. It certainly wasn’t a big deal. On the EXO Pro headset I felt just a slight let-down. I’d expected the dual mics to give better awareness of sound direction. I also had hoped they had a rechargeable internal battery option. But to be fair the battery life is pretty good, so maybe I’ll just keep a couple AAA batteries in my shooting bag.

On the positive side, the headset does a great job of protecting your ears from the noise of shooting. They are comfortable even after several hours, and I love the Bluetooth option. For the street price of around $135 dollars, I think these are a pretty solid buy.

Conclusion

If you are ready to step up to a set of electronic ears, or just need another set of protective equipment to keep in your vehicle this would be a good option. It comes in a handy case ready for the range making it a slam-dunk for shooters on the move.