I've been searching for a little while trying to find a quality intercom system.

The main feature I'm looking for is ease of installation and removal, as I will be intercumming with various instructors maybe within each day.

I've found this one...
seems to have great quality, but I don't think it removes very cleanly.

Just found this one, anyone know about how easily the headsets would remove from a helmet? I guess I could just buy a lot of headsets...
PMD Race Products

 

I think the word is intercumming

 

thanks, i fixed the post

 

 

Most instructors I've had in my car have used a Chatterbox system. Way cheaper.

 

^thanks, i'll check it out

 

I looked into the different chatterbox options, seems like they have a lot of failures, not interested.

 

It seems like an instructor could just plug his headset into the PMD intercom cable. And I could have a few extra just in case. I like that idea, but still willing to consider other options

 

Unfortunately all of the battery powered options suck. The Chatterbox stuff has shitty wiring in the headsets that seems to fail quickly. The Sena stuff has great reviews on amazon and would be awesome to permanently install in my helmet, but I haven't been able to find a single-piece earpiece/boom mic that would be easy for a student to use with zero setup/install time. With a lot of the instructing I do, I don't have time to mount and wire a headset onto a students headset... I need the single piece earpiece/mic that they can just stuff up into their helmet.

The Nady PMC-2X and PMC-3X have the best combination of quality, price, and ease of use in my experience. They still have their own reliability issues, but in the past they were so cheap that I always just kept a spare in my track bag. This thread just reminded me that I need to order a new spare, and unfortunately it looks like they're no longer $25-30 like I paid for my last couple. Looks like $60-70 is the minimum now. Hmm...

 

I just found this listing and went ahead and ordered one.

Nady PMC2X Pair Motorcycle 2 Way Hands Free Intercom Headsets Helmet Mounted | eBay

 

My Chatterbox Tandem Pro 2 is less than 2 seasons old, but I much prefer it to my 5-6 year old Nady PMC-2.
The accessories are much much nicer quality with the chatterbox.

I do carry both for redundancy though, and I suppose the Tandem headsets would work with the Nady box for a best of both worlds...

 

Thats what I have!





Heres the Chatterbox Tandem2 headset. Much nicer.

 

Dang, I've been using Nady stuff for at least 4 or 5 years and I've never seen those headsets. All of the newer ones are much nicer... almost identical to the chatterbox headset but without the foam donut for your ear. I didn't like the donut the time I used a chatterbox anyway. It made it hard to get the earpiece into my helmet and then it was really bulky once I got it in place, whereas I usually forget the Nady earpiece is even there.

 

Should I be looking for wired intercoms only? Are they usually cheaper and work better? Maybe slightly less convenient?

 

If the instructors have there own head sets with Bluetooth the 10r will hook into it. Puts it in a phone slot.
This is what I use on my bike and they work really nicely.

 

I use the Chatterbox Tandem 2 wired. Been beating this **** out of it for a few years. Used it weekly with my wife on the motorcycle too so we could chat riding around the city. One of the foam ear pieces came off, but otherwise works just fine.

Now the wife and I have Sena's, which are baller. They'd work well if you had a dedicated student all weekend, but cumbersome to install quickly, and pricey. I still use the Chatter fro instructing.

 

Count me as a member of the chatterbox Tandem Pro 2 wiring pull out crew. The insulation on my headset pulled out at least a year after I got it. But I had instructed with it many times and had many students pull the headset out with the cord. Didn't have any issues with the wires pulling out of the actual headset after the insulation pulled out. Just because I was curious I went ahead and addressed this issue below. All in all very happy with it, especially over the Tandem Pro 1 which I never thought got loud enough. The Pro 2 is comparable in volume to the PMC2

Here is the wiring pulled out. Survived much longer than I thought this way. The three Philips head screws hold the headset together.


Here are the internals


Here I have pushed the retaining ring down past the insulation. There is a 'bump' where the insulation is supposed to butt up against the outside of the headset. I have pushed that into inside the retaining ring so that this doesn't happen again


Problem solved

 

As a second note, here is a 300% crop on the wires in the headset itself. The red wire is from the microphone, the yellow runs to the chatterbox. I don't like how these are soldered, but they've held up fine and would take 2 min to re-solder if they ever failed. Very simple internals.

 

^hmm, thanks for that!

 

Sforsancho for the phrase, "Here are the internals" instead of "Here is the internals".