Quiet helmets

8<

I've just googled and can't find them.
<late breaking news>
Ah, there they are. NRR of 33, I'll get a few pair and try them. As an
aside, the law was changed this year to allow us to wear the foam type
plugs. Previously, only the custom type were permitted.

The ones I wear have a NRR of 32, 33 being the highest. The data is
undoubtedly from a lab test and not indicative of RW use. But, I'll see
what happens.

 

Matt Horn wiffled:

Open face - any open face. No wind, but you can hear why you're pissing all
the heighbours off for a change.

 

*boggle* whatever happened to the land of the free.

 

Not the POS Concept I've got. It's a horrible piece of crap that I had to
wear today due to washing [1] my Shoei Z-One.
Noisy, susceptible to wind - and like being in a gold fish bowl.

The Z-One is in a different league IMO.

(yes I know one is a flip up and the other full face, but still - I am just
not a Schuberth "oooh I can look like I've got a head the size of a planet
but the style of a slug" Concept person.)

[1] ewww brown water.... better than the one I hadn't used in months
though - that was growing mould! :-O)

 

This/Last month's Ride has a full helmet survey.

The Shoei Raid II won.

Some bigger names didn't do so well - some very cheap names did quite well
indeed.

 

Dan White says...

What Krusty and myself are saying is that if you have properly fitted
earplugs, then it doesn't matter what lid you buy. The difference shows
when you use throw away earplugs that have a lower rating than fitted
ones.

As standard helmets go, my F317-V is the quietest lid I've ever owned.
I still wear earplugs in it though.

 

I know!

 

On Thu, 05 May 2005 14:47:00 GMT, "Krusty"

But wouldn't you want to hear what's going on between yer legs?

 

The Republic of Kalifornia? We're not doing too bad, we can at least
filter legally here and are being encouraged to do so by the CHP in a
recent article in one of the magazines.

 

Some of the throw away types (specifcally the EarSOFT range) have higher
ratings than almost all other plugs - including moulded ones.

 

Whilst I can accept that properly fitting earplugs are the paramount
concern, what Krusty actually said was, "the difference in wind noise
between helmets will be irrelevant."

The fact that you say this:

"As standard helmets go, my F317-V is the quietest lid I've ever owned. I
still wear earplugs in it though."

implies that there *is* a definite difference in wind noise between helmets,
as you wear earplugs and you think that the *helmet* is the quietest you've
ever owned, despite the earplugs.

I've always worn earplugs, and I know for a fact that my first ever AGV
helmet was a damn sight quieter than my current Schuberth. Whilst I could
probably get the noise level lower by using custom fitted/better earplugs,
it doesn't follow that the noisy helmet would then be "irrelevant". I would
rather the earplugs reduced less noise in the first place!

 

*snort*

 

How do you argue with a big metal spike (which is one of the tests they
used) - it either passes or it doesn't - you can't really fudge that...

 

Does a big metal spike make a lot of noise then?

 

dwb scribbled on the back of a napkin:

*ding*

They have several full-face lids (although the S1 seems to be the only
one available in the UK) plus the Concept, but apparently only the S1
was designed to be really quiet. Which it is, but there are several
downsides to that, mainly the not-so-great ventilation.

It is the most quiet lid I've had so far but TBH I probably wouldn't
buy another one...

Who're calling a big 'ead, eh?

 

er... why do you think I'm buying a Shoei?

Anyway this is (hopefully) moot as my current helmet is 3.5 years old and
has another 1.5 years left to run

 

This is good. But I'm wondering how on earth they checked if you had
the correct earplugs.

 

I've always been pleased with the Nitro I got a couple of years ago from
M&S. It was about £65 IIRC, fibreglass and had good ventilation. Just
about the quietest lid I've had.

 

Bear says...

There isn't a bike dealer out there who'd do it. It's a safety item,
you can't go swopping them between customers like that, god only knows
how it's been treated in that hour or so the customer is testing it.

 

Lozzo wrote

This is true.

Or even the brakes, so thoughtfully fitted as a safety item to most, if
not all, bikes loaned out for testing. Just think how they may have been
abused by previous testing.

It simply isn't a good enough argument to be credible, try hygiene
instead.