Electronic Ear Plugs

[ikerrison]

Hello all. I am looking for some advice if possible? I have finally decided its time to buy some decent ear plugs  after years of leaving cheap ones in my pocket as they are either uncomfortable or fiddly to use. My hearing has suffered badly as it turns out they dont do a great job unless they are in your ears. My left ear for some reason  is particularly bad and I need to protect what I have left, although my partial deafness is sometimes convenient. I use cans when I occasionally shoot Clay's but the majority of my shooting is either pigeons,walked up or rifle (rimfire and centrefire) I struggle to use cans for this as don't like to be hampered so prefer plug ins. I have a budget of £500ish (birthday pending) and I have been looking at the following 3 brands, CENS, Custom fit guards and finally Vario revolution 4. I am currently favouring the Vario coming in at £474 with Basc discount. So my question is this before I part with my cash, what would you recommend and why? Any advice would be much appreciated. Many thanks Ian

[Dave at kelton]

If you are set on electronic plugs for hearing etc I can’t help. I decided against due to price and went with Emtec passive plugs that is an internal valve. They come in at less than £100 and are custom made so fit perfectly and comfy enough to wear all day.must be twenty years now and third pair as lost two sets now but it’s not as a big an ouch!

[silver fox 1]

 Hi I’ve been looking at getting some electric ones  i’m in a similar situation to yourself I’ve been using the Emtec  ones which I find very good but a bit muffled  so decided I’m going to get a pair of electric ones,  i’ve been doing a bit of research on these and the cens  do you seem to be quite good and have been going for quite a few years now  but apparently There customer service isn’t that good  which kind of rules them out for me, there doesn’t seem to be much between  The custom fit  guards  and the vario’s  at the moment I’m thinking the vario’s  because of the Basc discount,  haven’t done anything about this at the moment  because of the lockdown  I think when the restrictions are lifted I will get some sorted 

[Cawdor118]

I am on to my second set of CENS digital. The first set lasted 7 years until I lost one on a pheasant shoot recently. I ordered a new set of DX after that as the first pair were excellent. I was genuinely gutted to have lost one. Anyway, after 10 weeks my new set arrived and im just as happy as I was with my last ones. These new ones have larger batteries (size 13) so I expect they will last longer and they also have additional channels. Anything you want to know in specific, just ask. 

[JohnfromUK]

14 hours ago, Dave at kelton said:

If you are set on electronic plugs for hearing etc I can’t help. I decided against due to price and went with Emtec passive plugs that is an internal valve. They come in at less than £100 and are custom made so fit perfectly and comfy enough to wear all day.must be twenty years now and third pair as lost two sets now but it’s not as a big an ouch!

I'm very similar to above, except I'm still on 1st set after probably about 30 years.  Passives are fine for me.

[vmaxphil]

I've just got the cfg ones digital, the reason I went with them is I got 15% off and they came to the house to do the impressions , at the moment they are offering 10% but youtuber Johnny Carter ( tgs) has a 15% code, they took a bit longer than anticipated but I am pleased with the fit and finish and very comfortable, I shoot about once a week on average for about 3 hours and the battery's lasted 4 weeks which is all you will get out of them, the last time the guards were bleeping at me telling me the battery's were low but lasted the session, so all in all highly recommended 

Ps cfg sent me emails all through the manufacturing process telling me at what stage they were at 

[retromlc]

I have CENS maybe 8 years now? 1 packed in after about 5 years and was repaired foc. Excellent kit and have clay and game settings which worked well when I used to pigeon shoot. Recommended

[Spr1985]

I have Cfg digitalis and they’re great bits of kit, unfortunately I had a couple of customer service/ quality of end product finish issues that they rectified When i Complained but feel that the issues should never have arisen in a product at that price point. Based on that, when I eventually replace it’s likely to be with vario’s, Jason the owner of vario is an extremely knowledgable guy and stands behind his product with a no quibble money back guarantee and I’ve only ever heard good things said about him and his product. 

[ikerrison]

Thank you everyone who has responded so far it is appreciated. I am sold on the electronic ones, mainly to help my failing hearing in between pulling the trigger, the passive plugs I have tried so far make me feel isolated and make my hearing worse although I'm sure they work really well for some people? I'm still mulling over Cens, CFG and the varios. Not much difference in terms of price although CFG seem a bit cheaper but not sure if they are the same quality??

 

1 hour ago, Spr1985 said:

I have Cfg digitalis and they’re great bits of kit, unfortunately I had a couple of customer service/ quality of end product finish issues that they rectified When i Complained but feel that the issues should never have arisen in a product at that price point. Based on that, when I eventually replace it’s likely to be with vario’s, Jason the owner of vario is an extremely knowledgable guy and stands behind his product with a no quibble money back guarantee and I’ve only ever heard good things said about him and his product. 

That's really helpful thank you. I'm moving towards the Varios, for now..