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A bit over a decade ago, I met the founder of a company called EarPeace [1] that makes volume-reducing earplugs for music festivals in a bar in a suburb of Guan
by larrysalibra 3y ago
A bit over a decade ago, I met the founder of a company called EarPeace [1] that makes volume-reducing earplugs for music festivals in a bar in a suburb of Guangzhou. He gave me his pitch about the irony of how people who love music end up damaging their hearing by going to loud music festivals, concerts and bars. I've always been sensitive to keeping the volume of headphones low, but had never thought about the danger of loud environmental noise in entertainment venues. I guess I always assumed that making your best customers slowly deaf surely wouldn't be very good for business. I mean, they're already poisoning our livers and making us hungover, they certainly wouldn't also make us deaf, would they?
Ever since then, I've carried a set of EarPeace around on my keychain and used them religiously in loud environments. When I owned a Vespa for ~5 years in Hong Kong, I'd always put them in before driving....motorcycle forums are filled with bikers who have destroyed their hearing from wind noise.
Once apple watch added the ability to warn us about loud noises, level and time allowing me to quantify the potential damaging sound levels I'd been avoiding all of these years, it was pretty shocking. Bars and club can easily come in over 100 dbs and 110 db isn't really that rare.
I highly recommend some sort of volume reducing earplugs - not only do you protect your hearing, but it also makes going out much more comfortable. By reducing the volume of instead of blocking the sounds, you can make out more detail of the music and what other people are saying.
Edit: on the same note, does anyone know if earbuds with active noise cancelation like airpods pro offer similar hearing protection benefits?
1: https://www.earpeace.com/ https://www.earpeace.com/
- accrual 3y agoNice story and glad you found a solution you like to use. I'm all for promoting earplug use in daily life. Hearing loss isn't even the worst outcome from sound exposure - tinnitus/ear ringing (and worse still) hyperacousis (painful response to sound) can occur without warning in loud environments. It's shockingly easy to lose one's ability to "hear" silence, and it's often taken for granted until it's gone. On the plus side, I don't spend lots of money on silent PC components. :)
- literalAardvark 3y agoWe do know: ANC doesn't reduce sound pressure, thus it doesn't protect hearing.
- wthomp 3y agoWould you mind explaining this further? Since sound is literally pressure waves, I don't understand how reducing sound can still leave "sound pressure".
- lhoff 3y agoANC works by detecting the outside noise, deriving how these noises reach you ear and then play the antiwave so that in cancels out. The issue is that the canceling out part only works on the receiving end so there is still pressure on the eardrum even if you don't hear it. I still think that ANC is good for the ears by reducing the needed volume in every day situations. And it also helps that most ANC headphones are designed in a way that also passively isolates the outside world to reduce the burden on the ANC and as a side effect also on your ears.
- Toutouxc 3y ago> pressure on the eardrum even if you don't hear it Hearing is literally "pressure [changes] on the eardrum". Unless it's outside the frequency range of our hearing, if there's waves hitting your eardrum, you hear them. So either you're not expressing yourself clearly enough our you've seriously misunderstood how sound works.
- faeyanpiraat 3y agoI've just recently got a new headphone, and was so enthusiastic about it I listened to it for a day on loud volume, and got Tinnitus because of that. The scary part is that it did not hurt, so my body didn't notify me that I'm doing something wrong!! It's been over a month and the ringing is still not gone, it may never will. PLEASE be careful about your hearing guys, doctors CANNOT DO ANYTHING about it if you screw it up.
- nicolaslem 3y ago> doctors CANNOT DO ANYTHING about it if you screw it up. There is a window of time of a few days after being exposed to loud noises where actions can be taken to reduce the likelihood of long term damage. So actually if you screw it up please go see a doctor immediately.
- jacquesm 3y agoSome more good news: I had severe tinnitus at some point (some years ago) and bit by bit it faded. So long term you may have some recovery (or not... but at least for me it got a bit better).
- snerbles 3y agoNever did for me. I haven't heard silence in over twenty years.
- jacquesm 3y agoAh poor one, I really feel for you. It's incredible how such a superficially small thing can pull your quality of life down.
- cryptonector 3y agoMaybe you just got used to it.
- 3y ago
- zigman1 3y agoIt took me only one gig with an earplugs to start using them religiously, carrying them with me at all times on my keychain, same way you mentioned. Once you put them out during a gig and hear just how LOUD the place is, is really a strange sensation. I think it is fairly common now, at least with those who go to concerts regularly. Now I see most of the people wearing them, and some places even offer free ones on the bar counter.
- tetha 3y agoI would recommend getting good plugs though. Bad cheap plugs make you hear nothing. On the other hand, I have some Senner Earplugs. Those are amazing - they take away a lot of sound pressure at lower freqencies, but let most higher frequencies through. This way, you can still hear toplines, vocals, melodies clearly, but the bass + drums don't kill your ears.
- zigman1 3y agoYep, I agree. That's another thing that is fascinating at first when you start using earplugs. You actually hear the instruments better, almost as an isolated track
- eptcyka 3y agoAudio engineers wear earplugs for the soundcheck. If you want to listen to a gig the way it was engineered to sound, you should wear a pair too.
- unsupp0rted 3y agoI want the reverse: earplugs that effectively block kids crying or even just talking, but are still comfortable to wear for 8 ~ 14 hours on a plane.
- Toutouxc 3y ago> does anyone know if earbuds with active noise cancelation like airpods pro offer similar hearing protection benefits Yes, ANC headphones do protect your hearing, but they offer weaker protection than specialized heavy-duty equipment like you'd find on a construction site or a shooting range. When using your AirPods Pro your Apple Watch will even factor that in its noise measurements and show you the original noise level and the one that your ears are actually subject to thanks to ANC. For example if I sit right next to a loud vacuum cleaner my Watch says 85 dB, but when I enable ANC on my AirPods Pro 2 it drops down to 62 dB. One issue is than ANC can't predict and sometimes react fast enough to sudden loud noises, so if an engine backfires next to you, your ANC headphones will take a few miliseconds to catch up and will allow the original sound (minus their inherent (passive) sound isolation) to reach your ear.
- kqr 3y ago> One issue is than ANC can't predict and sometimes react fast enough to sudden loud noises, so if an engine backfires next to you, your ANC headphones will take a few miliseconds to catch up and will allow the original sound (minus their inherent (passive) sound isolation) to reach your ear. Ön the other hand, isn't the time spent exposed to loud sounds what counts for hearing damage? I.e. one should be less worried precisely about the sorts of things ANC is bad at dealing with?
- Toutouxc 3y agoI imagine it would matter more for more dangerous noise levels and environments, like a shooting range, where even a single shot fired without protection can cause damage, and while some of the better ANC headphones would be able to noticeably suppress a different, sustained, noise of similar intensity, they wouldn't be able to protect you against gunshots.
- constantly 3y agoIt depends on noise level. You’re right though generally. One can safely listen to 85dB for 8 hours before hearing loss starts. Up that to 91dB and you have just two hours. 97dB quarters it again and one can be exposed to only 30 mins. But once one gets to loud sounds like sirens, gunshots, firecrackers in the 120-150dB range onset of permanent hearing loss can be instant.
- badpun 3y ago> I guess I always assumed that making your best customers slowly deaf surely wouldn't be very good for business. Many venues with loud music caters to young people. Destroying their hearing is not a big problem, because they'll soon get tired/bored of your place (or the scene in general) and a new generation of young customers will come to replace them.
- n1b0m 3y ago“I guess I always assumed that making your best customers slowly deaf surely wouldn't be very good for business. I mean, they're already poisoning our livers and making us hungover, they certainly wouldn't also make us deaf, would they?” Same reason I still smoke
- dgellow 3y agoI had to disable the Apple Watch high decibel alerts feature because it was triggering way too often: at train stations, when taking the subway, walking in the city center, any type of construction work, etc. Before that point I didn’t realize how crazy loud cities are, somehow my brain just dealt with it, and now I feel I cannot unsee it.
- dijit 3y agoNot all cities are like this, but when I go to the USA I am always shocked by how insanely loud the major cities are. New York being the worst, but Philly and LA aren't significantly far away. Germany also seems to have this problem, at least in Munich, where there are 6 lane roads in the middle of the city and no sound isolation at all for construction. I think London for me is too noisy, but it's a far cry from New York which felt like an assault on my ears the entire time I was there; such that when I returned to London I felt bad for complaining about it.
- ethanbond 3y agoWorth always remembering (and a trip to many major European cities will confirm): it’s not cities that are loud, but cars. Of course trains are pretty bad too but you don’t tend to be surrounded by trains all day every day, even in NYC and especially in Philly, DC, LA, Seattle, Boston, Phoenix, Houston, Vegas, etc, all of which are extremely loud.
- strogonoff 3y agoWhy would one ever choose to own a motorcycle in a place like Hong Kong with its utter absence of places to ride and excellent round the clock public transport system? Is it the fun of waiting in 100 degree weather under hot air vents of bus and private car air conditioners? Unless one works in delivery gig economy, there just don’t seem to be any good reasons. Thankfully there are fewer motorcycles here than in many Asian countries (Taiwan!), but sadly they still exist and in this climate ear infections from constantly wearing earplugs or headphones with ANC are easy to get and not fun.
- _Algernon_ 3y agoStarting to use ear plugs allowed me to actually enjoy concerts. Before I always stood awkwardly in the back, or if not, be worried about my ears the whole time. With earplugs I can be at the front, feel the base and not worry. Worth it for that experience alone. I bought the plugs recommended by Tom Scott in [1], and they're fine for the purpose. Long term getting ones that are fitted to my ears is on my list. [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gzJePUquk1o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gzJePUquk1o
- lizknope 3y agoI also didn't like concerts for 20 years because they were way too loud. I would take cheap foam earplugs for mowing the lawn and all you could hear/feel was bass. Then I got some Etymotic high fidelity earplugs and concerts are enjoyable. They reduce all frequencies equally so the music still sounds good.
- intrasight 3y agoI've now for about 20 years always have two pair of ear plugs on my person. I use the 3M corded ones. $7 for three pairs. One pair for me and one pair was for my daughter. She's off on her own now but having another pair for a friend is a good thing. I am surprised by the number of venues where I feel the need to wear them. One is my gym. Reading this did inspire me to go shopping for another pair. I just ordered the Loop. I like that they don't stick out.