Not just GA, but all aviation headsets! What a pity. I have been flying with my Sennheiser ANR headset for over 10 years now and still think it is best value for money. All I had to replace were the ear cushions. I think I will look for a replacement one, just in case…
Critical mass is not there anymore. The market is too small.
mdoerr wrote:
Critical mass is not there anymore. The market is too small.
But here in Germany they have been supplying headsets to most airlines and also ATC ( * ). That is a good customer base. There is no need to develop new products all the time so all they have to do is continue their production. They should be able to make a profit from that, shouldn’t they?
( * ) From eBay a got a new ATC headset from Sennheiser very cheaply some time ago. It is very comfortable to wear but has a completely different plug. Maybe one day I will find out what the pins are…
mdoerr wrote:
Critical mass is not there anymore. The market is too small.
That would be all aviation, not just GA. How many headsets can be sold to ATC or the airlines? A lot more than to GA I suppose.
I wonder what is really behind this. I can’t somehow figure that this is not a profitable business, maybe just not profitable enough. Then again, in which other branch can you sell headsets for xhundred Euros?
There could be a patent lawsuit threat, for example…
It was the work of the beancounters. The volume of business generated by the aviation segment was around 1% of corporate turn-over but the division was profitable. Sennheiser will continue in the ATC sector.
@Peter_Mundy, I’m sure that it wasn’t the work of the much maligned beancounters, but instead a management decision based upon sound financial and other advice, and after careful thought. A successful company like Sennheiser is likely to have a very strong management team and such teams don’t look at beancounters’ spreadsheets in isolation and make decisions based upon such things.
My guess is that the board’s analysis of the competition led them to believe that any significant growth in market share was unlikely in the future at least without considerable investment and in its current form it was clearly a marginal (1%) activity for Sennheiser. Even if currently profitable it would have been distracting and diverting of resources. Far better for Sennheiser to concentrate that resource in an area of their business likely to produce a better return and a stronger future for the business as a whole. That’s what happens very often with marginal players – they choose to fight a better fight elsewhere.
what_next wrote:
but has a completely different plug
Would that be a LEMO plug? Or was it used in a helicopter? If you post a picture of it I am sure someone will find a solution for you.
Aviathor wrote:
Would that be a LEMO plug? Or was it used in a helicopter?
They do offer those headsets with with several different connectors, LEMO is one option (another would be PJ7 or Mini-DIN), but the default is open ended cable I think.
