Can you hear me now? - The Bear and Badger

Cos

Yup. These aren't the foam things you stuff in your ears to get some sleep. They're not designed to block out sound as such, but to allow you to hear the music as normal while reducing the decibel level and limiting damage to your hearing.

Skerret

See the links and pics I posted Noxferatu.

equinox_code

Can you still hear people talking to you? Or do you have to take them out whenever going to the bar? I'm finding it hard to imagine

Plus, my ears are weird. I cant put a cotton bud inside them or use earphones (especially the in-ear ones) for more than an hour or so without my ears getting itchy and clogged up with rubbish. If i actually ever try to clean my ears this usually results in an infection.

Skerret

You can hear people perfectly well, better even when the muzak is on. Â It takes the edge off so you can still hear everything, it's just softer. Â Not muffled, just softer. Â Loud gigs actually sound better with them in as the high end can drown out everything. Â I took them out for a bit at Aphex Twin to check and it was too loud to discern the full range of stuff that was happening. Â With them in, I heard the lot.

cockbeard

I have rapid wax build up, so currently not using ear defence, however after syringing always use plugs. Greater clarity, more frequencies, like having a top end compressor next to my ears. Also have too many friends with tinnitus or partial loss

Buy plugs, use plugs, much better experience, also if you like music now, you'll likely want to hear music in thirty years time as well

equinox_code

Not sure i have have my ears syringed due to perforation when i was younger. But cocko's approval holds some weight here.

cockbeard

I know spending a ton seems a big outlay, but it's not like they're disposable and once you have the moulds you can use them for high end earphones or iem systems. Look at it like a crash helmet

beano

Quite the custom ones my mate had were from a a set of Shure in ears monitors. They may have cost nearly a grand in total, I think the moulds were a few hundred. Hence gutted.

equinox_code

cockbeard wrote:

I know spending a ton seems a big outlay, but it's not like they're disposable and once you have the moulds you can use them for high end earphones or iem systems. Look at it like a crash helmet

Whoa whoa whoa. They're expensive? i always assumed they'd be 5-10 quid? Surely not so much more?Â

And i dont wear a crash helmet either. Dont think ive ever seen someone wearing one in Germany

Yossarian

Presumably because crash helmets with spikes coming out of the top turned out to cause more injuries than they prevented. Safer to just do away with them altogether.

Cos

The custom moulded ones are about Â£130-Â£150 inc moulds. The other two options in the OP and the ones Skerret posted are off the shelf types at about Â£20.

All depends how much you need/use them really.

Mod74

You can get foam plugs for 50p. Less if you buy a big bag of them.

Yossarian

The more expensive ones are designed to equally reduce the volume across the whole frequency range, cheap ones are just to block out as much noise as possible, which tends to mean that you lose a lot more at the high end than the low end.

equinox_code

Think I'll probably stick to not having them at all. In about 10 years time i wont be able to dance the way i do anyway, so probably wont have much desire to go out anymore.Â

Like gloves, if i bought those expensive ones id just lose them.

Mod74

50p

Mod74

Yossarian wrote:

The more expensive ones are designed to equally reduce the volume across the whole frequency range, cheap ones are just to block out as much noise as possible, which tends to mean that you lose a lot more at the high end than the low end.

That's not always true. The ones I buy are attenuated to a certain frequency, blocking out a low level drone (i.e. noise when riding a motorbike) but still letting you have a normal conversation at higher frequencies.

Yossarian

Mod74 wrote:

Yossarian wrote:

The more expensive ones are designed to equally reduce the volume across the whole frequency range, cheap ones are just to block out as much noise as possible, which tends to mean that you lose a lot more at the high end than the low end.

That's not always true. The ones I buy are attenuated to a certain frequency, blocking out a low level drone (i.e. noise when riding a motorbike) but still letting you have a normal conversation at higher frequencies.

That may be possible with cheaper ones, but the point with music is you want every frequency reduced by the same amount, not certain frequencies being reduced more than others. That's more difficult to achieve and why they cost more.

Mod74

Maybe. I won't be moved much past the fact that if high end audio companies think they can charge the earth they will do.

I'd love to know how they get high frequencies to pass through one part of the plug and low ones through another.

cockbeard

equinox_code wrote:

Like gloves, if i bought those expensive ones id just lose them.

Sorry to cross thread, but this is why you're fucking sixes and not nines

cockbeard

Mod, they don't, they simply use a funnel to reduce amplitude much like a trumpet (or Bose speaker) uses a bell to create amplitude. They're not simply stuffing gunk in your ear to muffle everything

equinox_code

cockbeard wrote:

equinox_code wrote:

Like gloves, if i bought those expensive ones id just lose them.

Sorry to cross thread, but this is why you're fucking sixes and not nines

You've lost me here

For the record, my scoring system is pretty tough. Much more so than Edge, id guess.

cockbeard

Your words mate. Don't get shirty

krs

Sew a glove to each end of a length of elastic and thread it through the sleeves of your coat; then you won't lose them.

Yossarian

You could do a similar thing with earplugs and pass the string through your head.

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