Champion Vanquish Pro Ear Defenders

Over-ear hearing protection is taken for granted but it’s nice to see a new product with some helpful design characteristics to overcome the competition. Champion’s Vanquish Pro Electronic Ear Defenders offer the usual padded overhead band with folding ear cups for compact storage and comfort in use. The innovative overall trapezoidal-shaped cups allows greater internal space for your ears, yet retains an excellent profile to fit close to the comb of your gun’s stock.

Tech

They assure 24dB of suppression with ‘acoustically modelled’performance designed specifically for gunshot impulse noise. The electronic element allows normal sound, like conversation and background noise to be transmitted through for normal perception. The sub 1ms refresh time for the two full dynamic range HD speakers enables a normal 360° feel from the omnidirectional microphones detecting noise around you. The other great advantage is Bluetooth compatibility allows connection with a smartphone to either respond to phone calls or listen to music.

Protection

Regardless of battery life, you get full sound protection. The 4x AAA batteries included, are paired up on each side and provide an advertised 150-hour run time. This drops to 60-hours with Bluetooth on permanently but nothing is for free. I still experienced excellent performance and loved the fact that the natural sounds around you could be amplified up to 5x when hunting, but the Bluetooth connected external device controlled its own volume independently so it was never overly noisy or shocking if your phone rings. The muffs power off after 3-hours of use to save battery with a button press resetting that time.

Comfort

Taking into account the compression of the foam surrounding each ear, you still get a minimum 15mm of clearance inside giving excellent comfort all day with minimal moisture build-up.

Conclusion

They were a little susceptible to strong wind noise, but the test period did coincide with gales of 40 mph + wind speeds which are generally out of the ordinary. I was pleased with the hearing protection on offer and impressed with the independent sound control for the connected Bluetooth device. A soft storage case is supplied and I also note the smooth ease with which each set of telescopic arms adjust.