The Lightspeed Zulu 4 vs. Bose A30 & A20:

Separating The Hype From Reality

How does the Lightspeed Zulu 4 stack up against the Bose A20 and A30?

September 15, 2025

When Lightspeed announced the Zulu 4 in July of this year, it arrived with tons of hype. Ads, social posts, and industry chatter all pitched it as a “next-generation” headset for pilots with “AI-enhanced audio”, “ear seals [that] accommodate glasses, sunglasses, or hats without impacting ANR performance”, and features that already come standard on other high-end headsets like auto-shutoff and multiple Bluetooth connections. On paper, it sounded impressive, perhaps even too good to be true. So I decided to put it to the test in real world conditions.

As a flight instructor flying 70+ hours a month, the headset is the most important piece of gear I own. Comfort, noise cancellation, and audio clarity aren’t just nice-to-haves: they directly affect fatigue, communication, and safety. After long back-to-back flying days, the difference between a well-designed headset and a mediocre one becomes obvious. With so much riding on headset performance, I wanted to see how the Zulu 4 stacked up against the long-proven Bose A20 and its successor, the A30.

The Lineup

The A20 has been my daily driver for years, but I figured it was time to upgrade and let it retire to passenger duty. I was curious about the new Zulu 4 so I ordered one, and I also bought the Bose A30 (released in 2023) to compare against the A20 (2010). My plan was to keep the one I liked best. To keep things fair, I purchased all three headsets at full retail price.

I compared all three headsets across dozens of dimensions in the following categories:

Price, warranty, return policy
Size & weight
Construction & build quality
Comfort
Audio quality & noise canceling

The short answer: the Zulu 4 falls short on nearly every count. Pilots who don’t place a premium on audio quality and intend to use the recording feature in the Lightspeed app may find it worthwhile, but for everyone else, Bose delivers a far superior product for only a modest price difference.

The Comparison

The Zulu 4 is priced about $200 below the A30, which gives it a slight edge on paper. In practical terms, however, the price difference is minimal - roughly the cost of an hour of flight time. At this level of investment, most pilots are unlikely to make their decision on price alone, and price-conscious buyers can find perfectly respectable headsets for hundreds less (like the sub-$400 David Clark H10).

Ultimately, the Zulu 4 does not represent strong value for its feature set and feels overpriced for the performance it delivers.

Price: The Zulu 4 undercuts the A30 slightly, but you get what you pay for.
Return policy: Bose gives buyers 90 days, Lightspeed only 30.
Warranty: Lightspeed offers a 7 year warranty, Bose offers 5 years.

Size & Weight

The first thing that stands out in a side-by-side comparison is the sheer size of the Lightspeed Zulu 4. It is noticeably bulkier and heavier than either the Bose A20 or A30. Unlike the Bose design, which folds neatly at the top hinge, the Zulu 4 has a solid, non-folding headband. The Zulu 4 is just unnecessarily huge.

When it comes to cases, the differences between the three headsets are immediately visible. The Zulu 4’s case is enormous—much larger than either Bose—and the headset’s non-folding design only makes the problem worse. It simply won’t fit in my flight bag, which is a non-starter for me.

The A30 case is also a bit larger than I’d like, with a softer structure and bulkier profile that takes up more space than it should. Bose decided to remove the elastic straps that hold the replacement AA batteries for the A30 case, which is disappointing. Instead, there’s a mesh pouch integrated into the lid.

By contrast, the A20’s case is compact and practical. It slides easily into a flight bag and protects the headset without wasting space, and provides easy, no-look access to the spare batteries.

Winner: Bose A20

The Bose A20 fits neatly into a Brightline bag with a Sentry case

The Bose A30 protrudes slightly due to the slightly wider profile compared to the A20

There's no way to fit the oddly shaped Zulu 4 case into the flight bag with a Sentry

Construction & Build Quality

A20, A30, Zulu 4 controllers

All three headsets are built to last, with high quality materials - as you would expect from a product at this price point. The headsets themselves feel equally well made, with no meaningful differences in the microphone booms or mic quality. Where Bose edges ahead is in flexibility: the A30 allows the mic to be swapped from side to side without tools, the A20 requires a screwdriver, and the Zulu 4 does not allow for repositioning at all.

The more noticeable differences appear in the cables and controllers. The Zulu 4 earns rare points for its braided cable, which has a premium tactile feel and resists tangling - an advantage over the thinner A30 cable, which tends to coil and often requires unwinding after being removed from its case. The A20, with its thicker cable, simply doesn’t have this issue.

The controllers, however, show the widest gap in quality. The A20’s controller is the benchmark: solid, rugged, and equipped with smooth, weighty volume knobs, along with Bluetooth that connects quickly and quietly. The A30’s controller feels like a step backward, with lighter plastic sliders for ANC and Bluetooth, though still functional. Both Bose controllers are miles ahead of the Zulu’s.

The Zulu 4’s controller is the largest of the three and feels downright cheap by comparison. Its volume sliders are easily bumped out of position and lack the durability you’d expect for daily cockpit use. Even small details undermine the experience: where Bose signals a Bluetooth connection with a discreet tone, the Zulu announces it with a jarringly loud voice prompt — a nuisance in practice, and entirely unnecessary.

Winner: Bose A20

Comfort

Lightspeed places heavy emphasis on comfort in its Zulu 4 marketing, and to its credit, the earcups are larger and deeper than those on either Bose model. On their own, they fit comfortably over the ears. However, once sunglasses and a hat are added, the larger earcups become more of a hindrance than a benefit. Despite the claims, sound leakage is still noticeable when sunglasses are worn underneath, and routing the arms of the sunglasses over the earcups pushes them into an awkward downward angle, a problem far less pronounced with the Bose designs.

Bose pitched the A30 as having a lighter clamping force than the A20, but in practice I couldn’t tell any difference. All three headsets applied similar pressure, and none presented an issue in terms of long-term wear.

Winner: Bose A30/A20 (tie)

Audio Quality & ANR (Active Noise Reduction)

I’m a bit of an audio snob, and audio quality is probably a bigger factor for me than with the average consumer. Bad audio is an absolute deal breaker for me, so I tested the headsets both in a normal flying environment, and in a controlled music listening session where I sat in a quiet room and listened to the same song in lossless format on all three headsets with ANR on.

There’s no way around this - the Zulu 4 sounds awful. Music sounded tinny, with harsh highs, muddy midrange, and low detail. Overall the audio was flat and uninspiring, and even radio calls became fatiguing. After a few hours of flight, I noticed a headache from the sound profile itself — something I’ve never had with Bose. The sound quality is closer to what you’d expect from a $20 pair of headphones than from a top-tier aviation headset.

Between the two Bose headsets, I was surprised to find the A20s to have a slightly richer and clearer sound than the newer A30s, but both sounded very good, and are more than adequate for the listening environment of a loud cockpit.
The Zulu 4’s noise cancellation was not only less effective than Bose, it also added a hiss and a strange pressure effect, like the hollow sound of a seashell. The difference between the Zulu and the Bose is night and day.

By contrast, the Bose A20 and A30 create a calm quiet, reducing fatigue and making long flights far more comfortable. During the quiet room test, I noticed that the A30’s ANR was a bit quieter than the A20, which adds a small amount of white noise.

In the cockpit, the difference between the two Bose headsets is subtle, and only noticeable when switching back and forth. The A30 introduces three levels of noise reduction—high, medium, and low—but in practice, I found the highest setting to be the only truly usable one. It’s hard to imagine a scenario where a pilot would deliberately want less noise cancellation, so the selector feels like an unnecessary complication. In this respect, the A20’s simpler, more straightforward design actually holds the advantage.

One annoyance with the A20, however, is its tendency to squeal if you press or otherwise disturb an earcup during flight. I tried to reproduce this with both the A30 and Zulu 4 but I couldn’t get either headset to squeal. By eliminating the squeal problem, the A30 makes up for what it gives up in marginal audio quality compared to the A20.

Both Bose headsets, however, remain far superior to the Zulu 4. Where the A20 and A30 deliver quiet, fatigue-free performance even on long days, the Zulu 4 introduces distracting hiss, poor audio detail, and weaker noise canceling—making it feel like a budget headset dressed up at a premium price.

Winner: Bose A30

Recommendation

If you’re investing in a headset to carry you through long days of flying, Bose remains the gold standard. The A30 is my top pick for pilots buying new, and the A20 is still a solid headset if you find one in good condition (good luck with that).

Both the A30 and Zulu 4 include features that I think are unnecessary: the A30 has three levels of noise canceling when one single well-tuned mode would suffice, along with “tap control,” which reduces ANC in one earcup when tapped. In practice, lifting the earcup briefly to chat is simpler and achieves the same result.

Lightspeed, meanwhile, is heavily promoting “AI-powered noise reduction (AINR)” for Bluetooth calls. In reality, the use case is narrow, and the branding feels like another corny example of leaning on the buzzword “AI” to sell a product. On the rare occasions I’ve needed to place a call through my A20 while the engine was running (to grab an IFR clearance or to call for fuel), the audio has always been clear with no complaints from the other end. Bose solved cockpit call clarity more than a decade ago with the A20, well before “AI-powered” features entered the marketing playbook.

One Zulu feature that could genuinely serve a purpose is its ability to record in-flight communications through the Lightspeed app. While I didn’t test this function, I can see its value for student pilots, non-native English speakers, or anyone creating flight videos. For those users, it may be a meaningful addition.

In the end, the Zulu 4 struggles to justify its place in a competitive market. While it comes in slightly cheaper than the Bose A30, the modest savings do not outweigh its shortcomings in audio quality, comfort, and ANR performance. For pilots who prize a quiet cockpit, clear communications, and long-term comfort, the Bose headsets remain the far superior choice. The Zulu 4 is not just weaker by comparison, it is also overpriced for the limited features it brings to the table.

TL;DR

Bose remains the gold standard for aviation headsets.
A30 → best choice for pilots buying new.
A20 → still excellent if you can find one used.
Zulu 4 → falls short in audio quality, comfort, and ANR; overpriced for what it delivers.
Only real standout feature of the Zulu 4 is in-flight recording, which may benefit students, English learners, or content creators.

Disclaimer: I purchased all three headsets at full retail price and receive no compensation for this review. My goal is to provide an honest, unbiased evaluation to help fellow pilots make informed decisions.

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