Thread: Ear protection

I'd like to prevent any further damage to my hearing by wearing ear plugs when I perform at loud nightclubs where the music volume is set on *stun*. I wore earplugs during my set last night, but aesthetically I didn't care for the bright orange foam sticking out of my ears. My long hair covers it a little. But anyway, does anyone know of any good quality, low profile earplugs that would be unobtrusive when performing but provide good protection? Any musicians out there have any recommendations about custom-fitted earplugs?

I've always used the ones that are made out of the slightly goopy wax material. You can make them small enough that they work but don't show.

I can personally recommend these:

Etymotic Research, Inc. - ER•20 High Fidelity Earplugs

I have to use the Baby blues (I have small ears!) but these are really hard to spot, plus they don't actually muffle sound, just reduce it.

I think the foam ones give better noise protection than the wax ones. (To me, the wax ones are more about keeping water out of the ears, but they do muffle sound, too.) I know I've seen the foam ones in flesh color, but a quick online search is only turning up the wax ones in the neutral color. They're not hard to find, and they would solve your problem, though.

If you do this a lot I highly recommend Perfect Fit or similar custom sized ear plugs. Hubby and I go to music gigs all the time and these things are LIFESAVERS. They are expensive but your hearing and listening pleasure are worth it. You can change out the filters to reduce the sound by 15 or 25 dB or whatever, and the sound is restricted evenly across the dB range so the sound is still even (instead of being bass heavy and muddy.) If you get them in clear you can barely see them, even with no hair!

Or if you want to, you can just glue some rhinestones to the part that shows so it can coordinate with your costume 8D
Which would be silly, of course.

Originally Posted by Nyyrikki

Or if you want to, you can just glue some rhinestones to the part that shows so it can coordinate with your costume 8D
Which would be silly, of course.

*thinks*

Deborah

Originally Posted by Nyyrikki

Or if you want to, you can just glue some rhinestones to the part that shows so it can coordinate with your costume 8D
Which would be silly, of course.

Actually, I thought about that, too, but decided that if you were using wax or foam plugs, the only way it would work would be to use oversized, flat-backed stones. Little rhinestones could easily come unglued from a flexible surface, and do you really want to explain to a doctor how a synthetic gemstone became embedded in your earwax?