Narrative:

Enroute; the boom mic on the company headset I was wearing slowly began to fade until it became garbled and unreadable. It almost sounded like someone had put a blanket over my head and I was trying to talk through it. So; I switched headsets and maybe 5 minutes later the same exact thing happened. My first officer had his own david clark model so we had a third headset that was not in use. I swapped to the 3rd headset and it worked for the remainder of the flights that day. There are problems with the company headsets.this is not an isolated event and has personally happened to me 5 other times. At first I just thought it was random and I had bad luck; but I have spoken with other pilots that have had the same issue. I don't think it is a problem with the intercom system; but with the headsets themselves. I don't know how much mx is tracking this; but it is a re-occurring problem. I used my own david clark model for 5 years prior to the policy change and never had a single problem. If the FAA and company have determined that it is in the interest of safety to require us to use a headset that was certified with the aircraft; it is important for you to know that there is a flaw with these headsets. What other reason would there be for the exact same issue to keep re-occurring on different aircraft. I hope this issue will be investigated. Going through 2 company headsets in 1 flight is not safe. If my first officer didn't have his own headset we would have had to perform our duties for the rest of the flight without headsets; putting a strain on effective communication. This obviously was not what was desired when this policy changed; however; it is important that you are aware that this is a re-occurring problem as a result of this change.

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: Air carrier Captain experiences two microphone failures in the span of five minutes during cruise. Reporter indicates that other pilots claim this is a common occurrence with the company provided headset/microphone.

Narrative: Enroute; the boom mic on the company headset I was wearing slowly began to fade until it became garbled and unreadable. It almost sounded like someone had put a blanket over my head and I was trying to talk through it. So; I switched headsets and maybe 5 minutes later the same exact thing happened. My FO had his own David Clark model so we had a third headset that was not in use. I swapped to the 3rd headset and it worked for the remainder of the flights that day. There are problems with the company headsets.This is not an isolated event and has personally happened to me 5 other times. At first I just thought it was random and I had bad luck; but I have spoken with other pilots that have had the same issue. I don't think it is a problem with the intercom system; but with the headsets themselves. I don't know how much MX is tracking this; but it is a re-occurring problem. I used my own David Clark model for 5 years prior to the policy change and never had a single problem. If the FAA and company have determined that it is in the interest of safety to require us to use a headset that was certified with the aircraft; it is important for you to know that there is a flaw with these headsets. What other reason would there be for the exact same issue to keep re-occurring on different aircraft. I hope this issue will be investigated. Going through 2 company headsets in 1 flight is not safe. If my FO didn't have his own headset we would have had to perform our duties for the rest of the flight without headsets; putting a strain on effective communication. This obviously was not what was desired when this policy changed; however; it is important that you are aware that this is a re-occurring problem as a result of this change.

Data retrieved from NASA's ASRS site as of April 2012 and automatically converted to unabbreviated mixed upper/lowercase text. This report is for informational purposes with no guarantee of accuracy. See NASA's ASRS site for official report.