Background: 

Back in January of this year I started on a journey outfitting a 16-foot positive buoyancy boat for what I intended to be a grand adventure with my 7-year-old daughter.  We would leave Washington State head up the inside passage of Canada and finish in Juneau Alaska.  Well, as we say in our family “COVID ruins everything”.   Even as I write this the Canadian border remains closed.  Patrolled by not only Canadian border protection and Coastguard but also a brigade of concerned citizens that report suspicious boat activity to the aforementioned entities.  So, the trip is on hold for now, but the boat is ready. 

Based on my previous boating experience (over 8 years in Alaska on vessels of all sizes) I knew it would be quite wearing to listen to the drone of an outboard motor for all 1000 miles.  Additionally, understanding the spongelike nature of a 7-year-old’s mind and the endless things to look at and talk about on the way up, I knew it would be essential for us to have a solid means of communication over the noise of the outboard.  When running solo or with minimal conversation in a weathertight cabin I have enjoyed using my Bose headset with active noise cancelation.  But I knew my needs would be a little different for this trip.

My requirements:

I would need something way more water-resistant since we would be exposed to the elements on 3 sides. I also knew I would need something with a good microphone that wouldn’t pick up too much of the motor noise while talking.  The final feature that was a must for me was the ability to turn off the ambient noise receiver/talk-through, but still use the audio in and microphone.  Other considerations were comfort across all head sizes and usefulness in other activities.

Enter OTTO:

In my search for a headset that would meet all my criteria, I created a pretty short list.  On that list were some top tier headsets.  However, all but one were missing one element or another.  The headset that checked all my boxes was the NoizeBarrier® TAC OTTO Engineering. If you are not familiar with the company don’t feel bad, neither was I, but they had all the specs I was looking for. The more I looked into them the more I realized why I hadn’t heard of them or come across their product in the field.  They don’t do a lot of marketing like sponsoring pro-shooters or big competitions. They very rarely buy ad space in the gun magazines. Lastly, they don’t release a new over-hyped product every year and claim it is the greatest thing since sliced bread.   They simply make products for professionals who use them in demanding situations.  

A quick authors note on demanding situations:  One piece of gear (headlamp, backpack, firearm, comms system, ect.)  is just as good as another... until it has to be, then it isn’t, and it is at that point you see what the extra dollars bought you…..reliability in the harshest conditions. 

OTTO’s product specs and list of customers in military and law enforcement speak  volumes, however, I also like to know the culture of the company I am dealing with.  There is nothing worse than having a piece of kit fail (invariably when you need it the most) and later calling into “customer service” to be put on hold for 20 minutes just to have a sales rep., who doesn’t know any more about the product than what their catalog says, tell you your problem was a result of user error and may or may not be covered by warranty.  OTTO was very easy to deal with.  I was able to get a real person on the phone right away.  That person was very familiar with the OTTO product line, and as soon as I had a technical question I was put in touch with an engineer who could answer it for me.  Their staff seemed to be not only knowledgeable but also energetic, hard-working, and loyal.

Time on the water:

Due to a brief pause in their manufacturing, Otto was not able to initially provide me with a permanent set of the NoizeBarrier® TAC, but they were able to send out a demo pair for a month.  In that month I was able to plug them into my RRP 242 intercom from Rugged Radios, using the Nato to XLR 5 pin cables rugged radios supplied.  With those items, the system functioned exactly as intended.  We took them out numerous times over the month.  The NoizeBarrier® TACs were comfortable enough to wear on prolonged outings.  They were adjustable enough to fit my daughter’s head or my L/XL ballcap sized noggin. The battery life was excellent and the sound quality was clear.  For a sample of what they sound like check out this link: http://www.precisionriflemedia.com/prgr/2020/8/26/prgr-005-mpa-matrix-chassis 

At the Range:

I also wore the NoizeBarrier® TACswhile teaching 2  CCW classes (I tucked the downlead in my polo shirt so as to not give off too much of that “tacticool” vibe). It was during the first class I came to appreciate the quality of OTTO’s talk-through system.  It made having conversations easy because it shut off and came back on so quickly I did not experience any conversation “clipping” even with gunfire around me.  

Conclusion:

Based on my month using the NoizeBarrier® TAC I am very satisfied.  They did everything I asked them to without fail.  A month was not long enough, under the conditions in which I was using them, to make a hard statement about durability or ruggedness.  I can say with certainty, however, I saw no obvious points of failure and suspect this headset would last many years in my application.  I look forward to getting a permanent set and will post updates as I have more time with them in various conditions.

Extra Credit:

You don’t have to read this section to get my take on the performance of the NoizeBarrier® TAC headsets, I covered all that above, but if you want to hear a little more of what Otto is all about as a company then read on.  

After my evaluation period, I arranged a time to speak with OTTO’s President Tom Roeser.  For being the president of a 450+ person company he was surprisingly personable and humble.  We covered a lot, but one quote really stuck with me, “Culture beats strategy”.  OTTO has a culture of improvement.  They improve on the products available to the end user.  They have improved the physical infrastructure of their community by renovating an old liquor store and turning it into a beautiful headquarters and buying foreclosed homes and renovating those for employee housing.  Finally, they improve the lives of those associated with the company.  They support youth through an apprentice program and they support their employees through a profit sharing program (Cash bonuses are given every 6 months usually equating to an extra 3 weeks of pay.) Finally, OTTO employees even support those in need in their community through bell ringing with the Salvation Army.  There are enough examples a guy could write a term paper about OTTO’s achievements, but in the interest of brevity I will simply say this, OTTO is in the business of making things better and in doing so they have embodied the American success story.

Author, Marcus Hom