Quote Originally Posted by wannab20hatch
Im having trouble deciding on my next helmet. Its time to upgrade and ive always said that i wont cheap out on a helmet. I had an old hjc helmet and dropped it so im looking to buy a new helmet.

option A upgrade to an Arai RX-7 600+

option B upgrade to an hjc ac-12 (carbon fiber) 200 +/-

like i said price doesnt matter when its comes to my head. and i know there is a big price difference but is the arai really worth the extra 400 bones? To me it fits the same as the hjc and feels a little lighter.
Unless you dropped it from like 10+ ft, or someone's head was it in.... then you probably don't have anything to worry about (I heard an Arai engineer say this himself, on national television).

But if you want to upgrade anyways:
DOT is decent, and the current SNELL standard is useless.
Narrow the list down to the best fitting, most comfortable DOT helmets that you can afford. For most folks, this should leave them with ~4-6 different helmets to choose from

After that, choose based on cost/design/features, color etc....

Personally, I like full face helmets with anti-fog visors (KBC, Scorpion and I think HJC might have some anti-fog visors now).

My favorite overall helmet is probably my Shoei TZR, but if money were no object then I would probably get an X-11 as a summer helmet.

Arai helmets are nice, but I can't justify the premium in the pricing. I could literally buy like 6 older-model scorpion/KBC helmets (with spare visors for each helmet) for what one new Arai costs.