GEAR REVIEW: Two seasons with the Alclair EXP Pro

I’ve used several different brands over the years, but none have checked as many boxes as the offerings from Alclair Outdoors, a Minnesota and Nashville-based company with a strong reputation for quality in-ear monitoring for musicians. I’m wrapping up my first full upland season (and the spring gobbler season before that) with the custom-molded EXP Pro model, and I feel completely qualified to weigh in on their pros and cons after having them shoved in my head nearly everyday this fall. 

Just how well does the top-tier model from Alclair perform in the field?

If you’re a hunter or recreational shooter and not actively considering hearing protection, it’s time to step it up. We’re a quarter of the way through the 21st century, folks, and hearing loss from gunfire is not only preventable, it’s trending towards uncool. I’m not here to shame you into relinquishing your God-given right to go deaf if you want to. Rather, I’m simply encouraging firearm enthusiasts to take note of the strong correlation between hearing loss and dementia, and proactively protect one of your most fragile and beneficial senses before it’s too late. 

Fortunately, we’ve arrived at the Golden Age of technological advances in hearing protection. There are numerous players in the digital and analog markets, each with offerings that universally provide reprieve from muzzle blasts. Prices have come down (relatively) and sound quality has gone up from a decade ago, and to be frank, you’re running out of excuses not to run some form of hearing pro in the field, duck blind, job site or firing range.

I have severe, genetic hearing loss in my right ear, and I noticed about a decade ago prolonged ringing (tinnitus) and pain following each shot in the field.

For a while, I just tolerated the impact much in the same way one deals with blisters or cramps - I sucked it up until the symptoms subsided. But to repay my body for carrying me to 40, I decided to put an end to what was likely a slippery slope into permanent, bilateral deafness and bought some proper hearing protection.

I’ve used several different brands over the years, but none have checked as many boxes as the offerings from Alclair Outdoors, a Minnesota and Nashville-based company with a strong reputation for quality in-ear monitoring for musicians. I’m wrapping up my first full upland season (and the spring gobbler season before that) with the custom-molded EXP Pro model, and I feel completely qualified to weigh in on their pros and cons after having them shoved in my head nearly everyday this fall. 

As they should be, the EXP Pros are tough and durable, and they’ve survived several rain showers without a hiccup in function, which is something I can’t say about a model from one of their competitors.

How does digital hearing protection work? 

That’s a better question for the technicians and audiophiles on Alclair’s team, but I like to think of them as an active filter for sounds over a certain decibel range. The microphones on the outside of the device gather, enhance, and deliver frequencies during normal, safe volumes (more on this later), then shut off when a loud sound is detected before the waves can be passed into your ear canal. It’s uncanny in its ability to make wingbeats sound three dimensional while a microsecond later turning the rapport of a high-velocity waterfowl load into mild thud. It’s also a testament to the relative sluggishness of sound waves when matched up in a foot race with electrons. Wrapping my mind around the details of their inner workings can give me a headache, but at least my ears finish the hunt feeling great. 

The EXPs are made of acrylic, and they’re custom molded and polished to the exact specifications of your unique ear canal. When inserted and turned off, they block an incredible amount of external noise, creating a peaceful, Zen-like bath of silence akin to what the very best noise canceling headphones are capable of. When one of the size 13 hearing aid batteries is inserted, the unit fires up and actively delivers external sounds from its microphone through the internal speaker (or “driver”) into your ear canal. 

At the top of the external faceplate is a frequency selector button, which cycles through several presets designed to best match up with different sound cocktails, from flat amplification to conversation enhancement. Each ear may prefer a different setting, or your brain may resonate with a particular preset better than another. I asked the team at Alclair to create a fourth preset for me that enhanced the low frequencies of a gobbler drumming or flushing grouse, a challenge they willingly accepted and added to my EXPs at the beginning of the season.

Part of the reason I love them so much is that the microphone does an excellent job of picking up my own voice and rendering it back into my ears in a natural way. It sounds like a minor convenience, but this feedback creates an experience where your brain is working with your hearing protection, not against it.

Below the battery door is a dial that adjusts the volume for each unit. For someone like me with one dominant (and thus far healthy) ear, my brain loves the ability to enhance my weaker ear to bring into spatial alignment the sounds originating in every direction. For years, I struggled to pinpoint the direction of flushes or distant gobbles, and the ability to boost the volume in my right ear with the dial has all but fully corrected this impairment in the field. 

Sound Quality

Sound quality, acuity and rendition are essential prerequisites of a unit at this price point ($999 at the time of publishing, with semi-frequent sales), which to be fair, is one of the most generous in the outdoor industry for the level of tech packed into each earpiece. The EXP Pros represent the very best of what the current technology is capable of today, and they don’t disappoint. I’ll stand these up to the flagship model from any other brand I’ve tried, and I’ll pick the EXP every single time. 

Part of the reason I love them so much is that the microphone does an excellent job of picking up my own voice and rendering it back into my ears in a natural way. It sounds like a minor convenience, but this feedback creates an experience where your brain is working with your hearing protection, not against it. 

Other models I’ve tried do a good job of rendering ambient sounds, but they muffled the sound of my voice, much in the way foam ear plugs or a bad head cold can. Not only was it annoying for carrying on a conversation with a hunting partner, it created a subtle sense of numbing disorientation in the field. It’s hard to explain, but I found myself constantly taking out other units to talk and putting them back in to listen. You don’t need to be an audiologist to know that hearing protection doesn’t work well if it’s not in your ears, and you can see the problem if a bird got up wild mid-conversation. 

The EXPs are molded and polished acrylic, and they’re custom fitted to your ear canal. (Yes, you have to have a mold cast, which may be a slight inconvenience based on where you live.) You can select the color of the acrylic from a large library of options and choose between a limited number of external faceplate colors (I went with black since I turkey hunt with them).

I keep the volume fairly low for upland hunting and walking through brush (which can be amplified and distracting at times), but I love cranking them up all the way when trying to listen for distant gobbles or big game moving through the timber. They’re truly remarkable in their ability to grab every detail of a tom’s voice from across the canyon that you’d faintly detect without the EXPs in your ears. 

Battery Life

The EXPs don’t include lithium ion batteries, a fancy charging case or bluetooth integration, and that’s 100% on purpose. When I pressed the Alclair team on this strategy, their answer was straightforward and adequate: Keep it simple and reliable. For hunters and musicians alike, fewer bells and whistles means fewer things to break, drain batteries, or fail at the least convenient time. I carry a cheap pack of replacement hearing aid batteries in my vest, and if my EXPs run out of juice in the field, I’m back in business in under a minute. Try that with your rechargeable protection that you forgot to put in the case the night before your hunt. Sure, I can’t stream music or take a work call in the field with my EXP Pros, but that’s not something I’m the least bit interested in, anyway. 

Overall, the 150-hour battery life claim is mostly accurate with the EXP model (I’m more like 100 hours or so), which is more a testament to the subtle discharging inherent in hearing aid batteries than any undue drain from the unit itself. 

Build Quality

The EXPs are molded and polished acrylic, and they’re custom fitted to your ear canal. (Yes, you have to have an impression cast, which may be a slight inconvenience based on where you live.) You can select the color of the acrylic from a large library of options and choose between a limited number of external faceplate colors (I went with black since I turkey hunt with them). I’d love it if Alclair could find a way to include the hearing pro tech in the same stylish outer facade as the badass in-ear monitors they make for musicians. Check them out, they’re gorgeous.

As they should be, the EXP Pros are tough and durable, and they’ve survived several rain showers without a hiccup in function, which is something I can’t say about a model from one of their competitors. 

Alclair stands behind their fit policy, and I can personally attest to their commitment to customer satisfaction. They truly want you to be happy with their product and encourage you to send them back in for adjustment if the fit isn’t absolutely buttery. I had their team adjust the fit of my left ear piece when I first received them, and after a little trimming it slides in just as perfectly as my right. 

What’s it like hunting with custom hearing protection?

I’ll be honest, upgrading your hearing protection to a fully acrylic model requires some adjustment. Let that not discourage you, as in the end the transition period and accommodation you invest will be worth it. 

Your brain needs a bit of an adaptation period to the new digital input it’s receiving. Put in your new EXPs and wear them around the house a few hours everyday for a week or so, and you’ll shorten the transition considerably. 

Are they comfortable? Yes, sorta. Acrylic is hard and rigid, and hearing pro that is custom molded to fully occlude your canal can feel somewhat intrusive at the beginning. On long, hot days in the field, it’s nice to take them out and give your ears a break. 

The EXP Pros are their flagship model, and for good reason. Are they spendy? Yes, but more affordable than some of the competition if you catch a sale. But you can’t put a price on protecting your hearing.

If you keep the volume too high for too long, as I did when I first received them, you’ll definitely notice some sound fatigue (I may have just coined that phrase) after a few hours in the field with all the extra stimulation your brain is receiving from the amplified sound of swishing grasses or rustling nylon. If you spend the day sedentary in the duck blind, it’s likely far less of an issue, and I’ll guarantee you’ll be the first person in your party to hear the whistling wings of mallards from across the lake with your EXPs. 

I don’t run the included lanyard because I find it too slick for a guy that does a lot of walking and brush-busting. I’d love for Alclair to develop a more rugged way to keep the EXPs attached to your person that doesn’t easily slide over your shoulder yoke like the current offering.

Since I mostly hunt upland over point dogs, I typically have a good idea when I’m going to be exposed to gunfire. On long hunts (a few hours or more), I find myself wanting to take them out in between bird contacts to let my ear canals rest and dry out from sweat, which is part of the reason I’d like Alclair to develop a better lanyard system in the future. Again, if you’re sitting in a duck blind or tree stand, this won’t be an issue, nor will it bother you on short or moderate upland walks. My compromise only requires that my hunting partners (and myself) refrain from shooting at wild flushes if my hearing protection is not in place. 

When it comes to customer service, you’ll be hard pressed to find a company in this space (or any other, for that matter) more committed to working with hunters. They are accessible, responsive, and palpably passionate about their work and the outdoors. 

The EXP Pros are their flagship model, and for good reason. Are they spendy? Yes, but more affordable than some of the competition if you catch a sale. But you can’t put a price on protecting your hearing. If price is truly an issue, take a long look at all the offerings from Alclair Outdoors, including the universal fit digital model and the analog custom-molded options with the impact filters. If you’ve been on the fence about high quality hearing protection, you’re running out of excuses. It’s time to step over to the other side and be proactive about preventing hearing loss. 

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