[MultipleParadox]

So I received my earpiece/PTT at the beginning of the week
I'll create a separate review thread when I will have used it "for real" but here are my first impressions:


I ordered the XSET XBC3 (Earpiece hardwired to PTT with quick disconnect finger PTT) but apparently it was not in stock anymore;

I was contacted last week by Cancom and the rep was proposing to replace the model I chose by the McKay FSES11 + MWPTT, which turns out to be the same thing than the XBC3 minus the finger PTT and having the earpiece and PTT separated, not hard wired.

Rep was very helpful in answering my questions via email and was answering very quickly (15min delay max between emails)

Technically the FSES+MWPTT combo is a bit more expansive but he didn't charge me more for it, which is appreciable. That said, I've seen some US retailers selling this combo at about the same price too, so this is all arguable in the end.

I decided to go that route and the unit was shipped via Fedex (in a Purolator box? Lmao!) the next day or so.

I tried this very quickly but with no one else close to me with a radio I couldn't test transmission much yet. Listening to SPVM (Montreal's police) frequencies I could assess the reception quality a bit though. For the 10-15min I wore it, the earpiece seems to be very comfortable and seems to hold well in the ear. I could totally see me wearing it a whole day; We'll see how this turns out when I get to use it at a game though.

Reception quality seems quite good, with sound level appearing a bit high to me though, even when the radio was close to its lowest volume. I was expecting the bone conduction tech to be totally silent when not wearing it, which is not the case.

Reception-wise, it sounds like what I suppose an acoustic tube would; My understanding is that it uses some sort of traditional speaker for reception but bone conduction for transmission.

The whole thing (earpiece and ptt) is very light, build quality looks and feel good enough for the price. The PTT button might be a bit sensitive and has that "microswitch feel" to it, so depending on how it's wore, I think it could be easy to accidentally activate it. This PTT is all plastic construction with Silicon cover on the switch. They also sell a MilPTT to Military standards that's compatible with the FSES11; From the photos and all it looks more rugged and Aluminium construction. From the look of it, I think it'd be harder to accidentally press the switch than the MWPTT

That's it for a first impression; Proper review probably sometime in May