Here it is for those interested.
Thanks goes to the members of APC and their help judging the hardest of all measurements in any e-caller comparison - SOUND QUALITY.
The members of the Arizona Predator Callers met Thursday night for the regular monthly membership meeting in Mesa, AZ. At the beginning of the evening's program and before any discussion, the programmable e-callers we're hidden from the audience's view behind a piece of heavy camo burlap and played in their stock form, just the way they're sold to users, with no extra upgrades, batteries or speakers. The callers were each played in turn several times using the same sound file, a song from the Australian rockers, Dire Straits, Sultans of Swing. Not exactly scientific, but most of us are much better at comparing the sound of music than we are comparing screaming rabbits. Then, the audience voted and ranked their favorites for the elusive title of best sound quality. I only noticed one person sneaking around the back of the table, checking the remotes, watching me push buttons, and apparently voting for a brand instead of the sound. After the vote was settled, the camo was removed and the callers revealed.
You'll probably be surprised by the results. #1 was not unanimous, but the crowd voted 34 to 4 for the MAD Big Country Bandit. The Foxpro Fury was locked solid in second place. Third place went to the Foxpro CS-24. And fourth went to Kanati's CX-1H. The WT couldn't be included in the demo, thanks to its lack of programming, but it's fair to say it would be a tie with the CS-24 based on identical speakers.
We also collected a few of the choicer comments when people were asked to briefly describe the sound quality of their favorite or least favorite in a sentence or a word.
My two favorites:
From the back row: "That one sounds like a 1955 Japanese AM transistor radio."
From one of the directors of the largest coyote club in AZ: "Total [beeep]."
I couldn't make this stuff up.
At the break, I added a Pioneer coax speaker to one channel of the Kanati and a Foxpro SP-55 speaker to the other, and pumping up the volume on the same Dire Straits tune, it turned the worst into the best. The cheap little plastic disaster Kanati shipped with their caller can kill any sale. I can tell one of these guys how to build a good product, and I have, but I can't force him to do it right.
I've played all the callers with various speaker combos, including Alesis studio monitors. They all may call coyotes, but a guy looking for the best value for his money, given the opportunity is always going to choose the best value, best features, and best customer service.
Thumbs up to Dillon's CS-24. Don't be put off by it's #3 in the sound quality category. It's EXTREMELY loud and a real killing machine. To the audience's chagrin I threw mine on the floor from six feet up at the seminar. I managed to knock the batteries loose, but other than that, it's indestructible. I put a rubber band around the AA's so next time it falls from a tree (or the next time I throw it) the batteries won't come out. Mine needs a slightly better handle, maybe a wrap of neoprene, so it doesn't pinch a finger when I'm carrying both the caller and shotgun in the same hand.
Listening to the callers one after the other playing the same exact sound is always much more interesting than hearing one caller alone, and then another at a later date, sometimes weeks or months apart, when a good comparison just isn't possible. I wish all the manufacturers listened as carefully to the buying public as the buying public carefully listened to their e-call products on Thursday night.
I am one of the privileged few who gets to evaluate, program, listen to, and use all the callers. Thanks also goes to the guys who sell me, lend me, or send me, callers for a comparison like this one. I spend weeks, months, thousands of dollars, and more than a hundred hours, getting ready to write a paper like this one and then showing them off. It's fun, interesting, and a whole lot of work. Not everyone is as fortunate.
BP, in the "silence file" test I'm trying to make "sound to noise ratio" easier to understand for the hunter. My measurement was the volume in decibels of a silent file played at maximum volume on each of the machines. But better than decibels, it's the output number on the noise dosimeter I use to quantify the volume of the sound. A completely noise free room measured 27, so use that for a comparison rather than an absolute. I could tell you that db are a logarithmic scale, but who cares? For this test, 54 was a tiny bit louder than 44, and everyone understands that.
Thursday night, I passed the Fury around the room with the cone playing the silence file and the volume on 40 (the Fury's loudest setting). The white noise was barely audible and you had to hold it up to your ear to hear anything at all. None of these callers produces much white noise. This isn't the "pause" function, it's the sound of a silence file. On pause, most of the callers made zero sound. MAD's Big Country was the loudest on the silence file, but is totally silent on pause.
Matt S., who also made the trip to AZ, hunted a dozen stands with me between Phoenix and Blythe on the way home Friday. Matt shot this typical male AZ bobcat, long, tall, and skinny, while we were calling with the MAD caller and later in the day, a coyote coming to the CS-24. Temperatures on our stands ranged from 96 to 109 on Friday.