Howard Leight R-01526 Impact Sport Review

The Howard Leight R-01526 Impact Sport Electronic Earmuff

The Howard Leight R-01526 Impact Sport features a pair of compact ear cups attached with an overhead band. The cups are designed to fold up into the band for easy storage and transit. Each ear has its own microphone, allowing the sound amplification features to function independently and deliver true stereo.

The Impact Sport has a volume control, allowing you to adjust the level of amplified sound and make it even louder than it would be were you not wearing protection.

There’s an audio jack to allow you to plug in your mp3 player or cell phone, making these perfect for use in less dangerous situations like vacuuming where you might to listen to a podcast or a bit of music.

Finally, a 4 hour automatic shutoff protects the two AAA batteries from being drained unnecessarily.

The Howard Leight R-01526 Active Sport Headset features a pair of compact ear cups attached with an overhead band. The cups are designed to fold up into the band for easy storage and transit. Each ear has its own microphone, allowing the sound amplification features to function independently and deliver true stereo. 

Designed to protect the wearer’s hearing while preserving their situational awareness, they’re a great piece of hardware for gun enthusiasts everywhere.

Packaging

The headsets come secure and neatly folded in a simple clear see-thru blister package. It also comes with 2 AAA batteries for your convenience.

Weight, Feel and External Features

The ear cups on the R-01526 are designed with shooting specifically in mind. Unlike other sets of earmuffs, whose rounded bottoms interfere with normal operation of a rifle, the R-01526 features cups that are especially thin and flat at the bottom.

This allows a users to get a rifle much closer to their cheek than with many other sets of hearing protection, making these Howard Leight’s much more convenient to use while shooting.

The way the R-01526’s automatically fold up for transport and storage is quite useful. More useful still is how accessible the battery compartment is — it’s at the top of one of the cups and can be easily opened without the use of any tools.

The biggest downside to the R-01526’s design is the way the full sized cups interfere with eye protection. These muffs use a healthy amount of tension to stay on your head and provide proper noise reduction.

Unfortunately, this makes it difficult to wear safety glasses or other accessories that might rest above your ears while wearing the R-01526.

This problem isn’t unique to this set of hearing protection, either — most full cup muffs will interfere with glasses in some way. You may want to bring your favorite pair of safety glasses to a local gun store and try on various kinds of hearing protection before making a decision about what type is best for you.

Hearing Protection and Battery Life

The R-01526’s offer (and deliver!) a noise reduction rating of 22. Without delving too much into specifics, this makes them perfect for hobby use. If you actually work at a gun range, you might want to consider a pair with better noise reduction. For other uses (construction, factories, etc), 22 dB will likely be more than enough.

The R-01526’s are comfortable enough to wear for long periods of time. They exert firm pressure on the user’s ears and stay put very well, delivering the full 22 dB of noise reduction advertised.

The sound amplification features make this even easier — given how easily the wearer can still hear, it’s possible to forget that you’re wearing hearing protection at all.

The batteries on this unit last for quite a while. If you went shooting once or twice a week you could easily get a month or more out of a single pair of AAA’s. They’re easy to change and easy to find at any store.

Best of all, the hearing protection functions perfectly fine with no batteries — all you’re losing out on is the sound amplification.

Sound Amplification

Howard Leight’s sound amplification system records sound, strips very high and very low frequencies, adjusts it to a pleasant volume, then plays it back in each ear. The volume on this system can be adjusted up to the point where it functions as a hearing aid or turned off altogether.

The speakers in each cup have surprisingly good frequency response when used to play back music or other audio from the line-in jack. When reproducing ambient noise, however, the lack of both bass and treble frequencies will result in a sort of flat, tinny sound, almost like you were listening through a (very high fidelity) telephone.

This isn’t bad, actually — it preserves batteries while ensuring that important sounds like speech and movement are transmitted to your ears with maximum clarity. The sorts of frequencies the R-01526 filters out are the ones that you need protection from — the deep boom and high crack of gunshots, the low industrial rumble of working machinery, and the high pitched whine of a saw.

By filtering these out, the system can amplify other sounds — footsteps, speech and rustling, for example — to a much higher level without damaging your hearing. Unlike other headsets, which cut out all sound for a moment after a gunshot, the R-01526 delivers a more constant level of safe sounds while still blocking out the loud ones.

Price

The Impact Sport R-01526 costs between $35 and $50 at the time of this writing. Of course this is dependent on where you purchase it from. Make sure you’ve considered your alternatives before purchasing the Howard Leight’s for home or hobby use. Click here if you would like to purchase the unit now.

Overall

The biggest thing that the Howard Leight R-01526 earmuffs have going for them is the price. While they’re not quite as feature rich, powerful, or comfortable as some other earmuffs on the market, they boast a stunning array of features and a competitive low cost.

For casual buyers or people wanting to pick up a spare set of earmuffs, the R-01526 may be the best deal on the market.

Pros and Cons of the Howard Leight R-01526 Impact Sport

Pros:

– Easily changeable AAA’s with long battery life

– Compact design to allow proper use of rifles

– Solid 22 dB of noise reduction

– Folds for easy storage

– Audio jack for mp3 or phone

– Great clarity of ambient noise — (Perhaps the best for understanding speech among similar earmuffs)

Cons:

– Difficult to wear with eye protection

– Not as light or comfortable as some other earmuffs

– 22 dB may not be enough protection for some users

– Can’t adjust volume for each ear independently

User Reviews

Click here to view detailed user reviews for the Howard Leight Impact Sport

Manufacturer’s Specs

– Sleek, extremely low profile ear cup design allows for full clearance of firearm stock

– Automatic 4 hour shut-off increases battery life

– AUX jack connects to MP3 players and scanners

– Automatically shuts off loud impulse noise to a safe 82dB while amplifying conversation and range commands

– Convenient folding design for easy storage

– One single power and volume control knob

– Air Flow Control™ technology

– Black leatherette headband with sporty hunter green earcups

– Water resistant

– Easy access to the external battery compartment

– 2 AAA batteries included

Warranty Policy

Below is the Warranty Policy according to Howard Leight.com:

There is a one year guarantee against defects in material and workmanship. The guarantee does not cover damage caused by misuse, abuse or unauthorized modifications.

To obtain guarantee, the guarantee certificate must be properly filled in by the dealer and then sent in together with the faulty product.

---