Peltor Optime 98 Review – 2024

Our Comprehensive Review Of The 3M Peltor Optime 98

The Peltor Optime 98 is a set of basic passive hearing protection headsets. They’re light, inexpensive, and practical. While the noise reduction rating of 26 dB isn’t the highest ever, it’s more than enough for most purposes.

If you’re looking for an affordable set of backup protectors for your shooting bag, or you’re not ready to spring for a more expensive electronic headset, the Peltor Optime 98 is an excellent choice. Continue reading below for more details, specs, pros, and cons from our tests with this headset.

Below is the current price on Amazon.com for the Peltor Optime 98:

Features & Benefits At A Glance

* For noise levels up to 95 dBA

* Stainless steel construction resists bending and warping

* Earcup pivot points tilt for optimum comfort and efficiency

* Ultra light with liquid/foam filled earmuff cushions

* Noise reduction rating (NRR): 26 dB CSA Class A

* Noise Reduction Rating of 25 dB

* Lightweight headband for user comfort

Before we go into too much detail, it’s worth noting that 3M claims that these earmuffs are for noise levels up to 95 dBA. Gunshots can range from 150 to 190 dBA depending on the caliber and type of gun.

In practice, these are almost certainly fine for shooting, but you may want to pair them up with a set of earplugs just to be safe.

Comfortability

One of the better features of the Optime 98 is how comfortable they are. The entire product is quite light, meaning it sits effortlessly on your head.

The band has enough tension to give you a good cheek weld without squeezing your head too much, and the cup seals are made of a liquid and foam blend that offers plenty of padding. You won’t forget you’re wearing these, but you won’t be in too much of a hurry to remove them, either.

Sound Features, Sound Quality & Noise Reduction

The noise dampening offered by the Optime 98 is perfect for steady, higher volume noise. Like I mentioned above, they’re not a one-stop solution for shooting, unless you shoot smaller guns outdoors.

They’re perfect for reducing the noise of saws and other machinery, however, and they’ll make loud motoring events much more tolerable.

Needing to pair these with a set of earplugs for shooting isn’t that unusual, either. Most experts will recommend that you use two forms of hearing protection for shooting big guns indoors.

Even if you got a pair of -30 dB earmuffs, you’d still want to think about carrying earplugs around just in case. The story here isn’t any different.

Other Important Features

Earmuffs tend to look pretty similar. The Peltor Optime 98s aren’t any different than any other pair in terms of shape, but they come in VERY bright yellow. For most users, this is a big plus. You’ll stay visible while keeping your hearing safe.

One difference between these and other pairs of earmuffs is how the cups are adjusted. You’ve got plenty of room to move the ear cups up and down to accommodate a tall or round head, but you do so by moving extenders located just above each cup.

There isn’t much play in the top band. This can take a bit of time to figure out. Once you’ve gotten the trick down, however, you’ll be able to adjust these with ease.

The Optime 98 don’t fold up for storage the same way more expensive earmuffs do. They’re quite durable, however, so you should have no problems just throwing them in your bag and hoping for the best.

Still, you can keep most other sets of earmuffs in a large pocket. Doing that with these is going to be pretty difficult.

Pros & Cons

While the Optime 98 is an extremely low-cost set of hearing protection, it is missing all electronic features entirely. Competing sets often offer some combination of active noise reduction and noise pass-through.

Active noise reduction uses microphones and predictive circuits to literally cancel out noise waves before they reach your ears. This makes steady noise (like airplane engines, fans, and machinery) far quieter.

Noise pass-through does the opposite: it listens for quiet sounds (like people talking) and then plays them back on a speaker inside of each ear cup. While this makes the ear muffs worse for blocking out annoying background noises, it also means you can have a conversation while protecting your ears against loud noises (like gunshots).

Neither of these modes is truly necessary. On the other hand, if you find yourself using hearing protection a lot, there’s a good chance that upgrading to a more expensive electronic set will improve your quality of life by either blocking more noise or by keeping you more situationally alert.

In any case, there’s nothing wrong with grabbing a set of Optime 98’s now. They’re incredibly cheap and they’ll always be a backup pair if something happens to your fancy electronic set.

Overall & Final Thoughts

If you’re looking for a cheap way to block out noise, the Optime 98 is a great choice for you. Despite being fantastically inexpensive, they offer a fairly high noise reduction rating and manage to be quite comfortable.

They’re durable enough to withstand a good amount of abuse, so you’ll have a great pair of earmuffs for years to come.