Rugged Radios H41 Behind-the-Head Racing & Industrial Headset

I have a number of RR headsets. These are quality, headsets. I like them a lot. I work track safety at a local asphalt track and wear it for about 6 hours at a time. It is more than loud enough to hear the radio traffic over the engine/exhaust noise, the mic is clear and works perfectly. the behind the head tension is nice as I often wear a helmet and this allows me to wear the headset and helmet at the same time. they also do have some NRR that is nice to have also when at the track as it can be damaging to the hearing. The 5 pin adapter is standard and there is plenty of cables for either Kenwood or Motorola cables (there is other ones too but those are the 2 major ones) I have had the same headset for about 3 years of solid use as a safety crew at a racetrack and have been adding a few more in for friends and family to use at the track to listen in or use while on the SxS they work well also.

Great headsets. I used to work for a 2-way radio accessory distributor. Ive seen the good and the bad. Pros: These things are built like tanks. Comfy (they make gel ear cups) and are easy to wear for a few hours. The microphone boom is very robust. We recently got back into nascar and have a radio that will monitor our driver, as well as allow us to talk on a separate frequency. The problem we ran into was the audio was very very low. No matter what settings we used, you could barely hear. Our radios are Baofengs (yes, i know) and have no manual mic gain. These were engineered to use Rugged Radios in-car communication box..which means it has a built in amp..most hand helds do not. If you plan to use a 2 way handheld radio such as a Baofeng, you will need to change out the microphone to a different style. They are roughly $30 and rugged sells them as well. 2 small screws and its an easy sway. I wish they would update their listing description because I see this low audio problem come up often. I was able to re-use the existing foam cover without the rubber band..be warned it rips easy. After the mic swap, OH BOY! We can now hear each other without yelling and looking crazy at the track. I have included a picture of what you would need to accommodate a 2 way handheld. *Dont forget you will need a Kenwood style 2 pin adapter to plug the headset into your radio(if you use a baofeng). Use your radio at your own risk as they often are tuned to FCC regulated frequencies.

First, if you are looking for a headset this is about the best value you can find. I am very satisfied with the audio and the quality of the build after initial testing. For my uses, I direct video crews at concerts which requires me being able to be in contact with shooters all over the rock venues I shoot at. Very happy with how this protects my crews hearing as well at loud events. Build quality seems very good especially given the price. Only thing I don't like is the ergonomics. I dont like how the rigid headband is essentially flat, i feel like a rounded rigid part with some spring to it would make these fit better. Overall great product though. Will be buying a few more for additional radios in the future.

Bought them on sale. At the time had lower reviews. I took a chance and they have not failed me yet. Sound good. Work well. Comfortable enough. Aux jack works for my raceceiver along with my main official's radio at the same time. I take them as my normal hearing protection to other motorsports events. 10/10 would buy again but 3 years in and no sign of wear so i guess I won't be replacing them any time soon.

This has been one of the best investments I have made for attending races. Combined with other radio equipment (Beofeng and FM radio) I can almost always fine the live TV broadcasts for the race as well as team to car radios which completely transforms the experience. Plus, I can chat with my freinds without shouting and across distances. The noise blocking is also fantastic. The over the bead strap and behind the head tension fits great, but I actually prefer the full over the head set.

First, these headsets are NOT intercoms. You people buying them for that need to read the description more carefully. If you don't know or are not sure, contact the seller before you buy something that does not suit your purposes and if you do buy something that doesn't do what you thought it did ... Don't leave low rated reviews because you didn't understand what you were getting. That's on you, not on the item or the vendor of the item. I use this headset while operating heavy earth-moving equipment. This head set is very comfortable and I wear it all day long every day I work. I have the right ear cup headset 5-pin jacked into a business band radio (a Baofeng UV-5RTP 8 watt tuned to the company business band frequency) so I can get instructions from the site engineer and so I can communicate with the crew in general. This is extremely useful to me and my company. I have an MPOW Bluetooth device strapped with Velcro right next to the mic and it has a 3.5mm audio cable going to the 3.5mm jack on the left ear cup. This turns the headset into a Bluetooth headset and I use it to talk on and listen to my phone. Mostly listening to audio books and music all day while I work. I get about 15 hours of listening with maybe a half hour of talking on the phone during that 15 hours on a single charge. If I talked more on the phone I would probably get less time on a charge. Thus I have both radio and telephone communications systems available simultaneously to me while I'm working. Both audio systems, the 5-pin to the radio and the 3.5mm audio jack, work at the same time. I don't miss a radio call when I'm listening to my books or music and vice verse. The audio for both the 3.5mm jack and the 5 pin are excellent. I turn the volume on the HEADSET all the way to max, then adjust the radio and phone with their own volume controls. The radio is VERY loud if both radio and headset are turned up to full volume so I have to dial the radio back to about half volume. The phone is just right with both headset and phone at full volume. The "behind the head" type headset is so that you can wear a hat with the headset. Often people will wear hard hats with headsets like these. There's nothing overhead to fall on anyone in the kind of work I do (everyone is inside a hard top cab with ROPS) so we don't wear hard hats but I do wear baseball caps and an old, comfortable, well worn Stetson. Headgear is the reason you would go with a behind the head rig like this one. If you don't need that feature buy an over the head type of headset. I've modified mine a bit. The mic that comes with the headset is meant for very noisy environments, like rock concerts and working in the vicinity of high bypass turbofan engines. You have to put it right on your lips and practically yell into it and it is designed that way. It's working properly but I don't need that in an air conditioned fully enclosed equipment cab. It's noisy in the cab but it's not like working around jet engines or race cars. So I replaced the mic with a hotter electret type microphone. The mic boom isn't long enough for me so I replaced the first stage segment (there are two instead of three segments of the boom) of the wire that attaches to the headset. It was a fairly easy process to use the old wire as a template and fashion a new, longer boom segment from a galvanized turf staple. It works perfectly and unless I pointed it out you'd never know it was a modification. I like these so much I've ordered a 5-pin cable for my phone from Rugged Radio also. That way I can use the 5 pin jack (and thus the boom mic without needing Bluetooth) with my phone. I use this headset when I'm mowing my multiple acre lawn and operating my tractor at home in addition to using them at work and I don't need the business band radio when I'm doing that. All in all I'm happy enough with this headset. I took a star off because Rugged Radios doesn't give you a mic option when you order so I had to spend $20 on a new mic. Which added to the cost of the headset because they won't take the original back and credit me for it. Also the length of the boom problem contributed to me dinging them a star too. As the boom is fully adjustable another couple inches of wire boom wouldn't cost them much so I feel like they could do better on that boom. When it is at max extension and still doesn't sit centered in front of your lips it is not long enough. Especially not with the noise reducing stock microphone which needs to be shouted into to make yourself heard. If that mic isn't positioned perfectly it's very difficult for people to hear you. All the other Rugged Radio headsets that use a wire boom have a three segment proper length boom which you can buy for $15 on their website. I don't know why they felt they had to skimp on this one. That said, the boom adjustments on the headset are all decent quality metal fittings. No plastic to strip out and render your headset useless. The quality of the build seems to be very good. These are professional grade equipment not toys for amateurs. An added bonus is the fact that you can buy replacement and repair parts on the Rugged Radio website. If you're handy with such things you can fix your own problems and get your gear back in service ASAP. You can even get upgraded parts (like gel ear cushions) though I wouldn't bother with something like that unless and until the originals wore out. I've been using them for a month or two now so if they don't hold up I'll be back to amend my review. So far, so good. I can't see any reason to buy their more expensive headsets just to get a longer stock boom and likely the same mic, which would need to be switched out for my application anyway.

I am an SCCA Pit Marshall, I needed a comms headset to do my job. Today was my first use of this new headset. I had no issues with the audio at my end and during a "comms check", I was received clearly on the other end with race control. For a pit crew, looking for a good, low cost, radio system, this is a great headset. If money is not an object and you are more impressed with "Big Name, High End Brand", waste your money on "David Clark". I noticed as the car crews were standing the fence, talking to their drivers, quite a few had the Rugged Radios headset.

We use these for hearing protection at NASCAR races. They also let us plug in our scanners to listen to race teams, while simultaneously plugging in FRS / GMRS radios to have wireless intercoms in the stands.

Love this product. This is my second one.

Very comfortable and easy to wear all day, but the volume is not the best maybe just a faulty set.

Hasn't been used yet.. but for those thinking of ordering .. it doesn't come with the cable to plug in.. $180+ with taxes and no cable .. a bit disappointing..

If planning to use with most handheld you will also need to order the Rugged Radios M350-E-ADJ Microphone as your TX audio will be very low and can be hardly heard as supplied cartridge doesn't provide enough audio to radio . I will try wiring up to fixed radio system in SXS and see how the supplied mic cartridge work in that configuration