New earplugs: best investment ever!

If you hear constant ringing, the damage is already done but it can get worse to the extent of having problems hearing anything above the level of the ringing and also experiencing trouble sleeping. What makes this a worsening problem is listening to music or being subject to noise as in a construction environment at a higher level than what originally caused the tinnitus. It will only get worse, not better. When the loud music stops, the ringing begins. Protect your ears or what ever you have left of your hearing.

I meant: can tinnitus become worse even if you wear hearing protection?

I have a very small amount of tinnitus mostly from not adhering to the advice I am giving when I was at an early age. Now because of my work I see an audiologist two to three times a year, not just because of the tinnitus but in case I start having a high frequency fall off problem that to an extent most people will experience when they start getting older.

By frequency fall, do you mean hearing worse? Everyone can live with some hearing loss, but tinnitus causes you to hear things which aren't there. That's much worse than simple hearing loss.

Do you mean that at a certain age, the ringing will become worse regardless of noise protection?

Well, I was wearing army headphones and the noise level is drasticaly lower so to are the high frequencys, I'd love to know myself, so someone plese answer.

Tinnitus is not only caused by noise, although that's the major cause.

It's heavily stress-related and it becomes (temporarily) worse under influence of cafeine, theine, alcohol, smoke, disease, pressure, wind, cold...
 
Thumbs up - I also took the plunge on custom molded plugs this year and couldn't believe I'd held out so long. I use them EVERYWHERE - loud bars, concerts, parties, trade shows, practicing, etc. Some of the best money I've ever spent.

Me too, I got the Westone kind with two filters.. -25dB and another that has no filter on it, kinda looks like a solid cap where it fits in the plugs.. Audiologist said those would act like "foam earplugs" in terms of dB reduction.

Very happy with them!
 
Amen, these plugs are the best way to go for sure, especially the sensaphonics.com brand.

Yes, even with earplugs your ears do still accumulate miles. For some people they'll be fine for here on after, but for me even though I haven't touched a drum without ear protection in over a dozen years, I still need to watch how loud, how long and how often. My tinnitus is pretty severe and easily agitated.
 
Yes, even with earplugs your ears do still accumulate miles. For some people they'll be fine for here on after, but for me even though I haven't touched a drum without ear protection in over a dozen years, I still need to watch how loud, how long and how often. My tinnitus is pretty severe and easily agitated.

How can that be? If drums are 100dB on average, minus 25dB with plugs, that's 75dB, low enough behind the safety treshold of 85dB.

If noise is not the reason of aggravating tinnitus, what is? Maybe you've become hyper sensitive to hard sounds.

If wearing these earplugs is not safe, then I should stop drumming.
 
Im actually happier using Etymotic BABY BLUES, they're small(er) and you can adjust the amount of seal, something you can't do with molded plugs...
This is very, very inadvisable. Not inserting ear plugs properly (i.e. inserting them only halfway in) will decrease the amount of protection you're getting drastically. It might sound less noisy to you, but your ears will be receiving a lot more db's than you're aware of.
 
Actually you can buy molded plugs which have a sort of a screw thingy on them to adjust not the seal (which I don't think is a good idea either :/) but the isolation. Obviously they are made so you can't go to the point where it's open and your hearing will be damaged. But you can adjust the isolation from something like -25dB to -40dB. One of my drum instructors had a pair.
 
i don't know if it's been said, but moulded in-ear monitors aren't necessarily safe, if anything they can be extremely dangerous if not used with caution. yes they are much better to use for isolation/sound levels than ear plugs, but you have to be extremely careful. my old drum teacher had his ears blown by a sound engineer/mistake. the volume peaked and couldn't play drums for months.
i learn't from his mistake. i have a limiter that i take to every gig to put in my signal chain. i deal with all my own monitoring, no way in hell am i letting an average sound engineer deal with that.
now if i had a dedicated mix engineer then that would be a different thing, but i don't have enough money for that luxury.

as for tinnitus, i used to have it pretty bad, but i got my ears syringed and it got a bit clearer. it's as if my head suddenly felt less pressure, kind of weird to explain. you don't want to get your ears cleaned too often (you don't have to get it done at all really), but i found it helped me. it's still there, but i really can't hear it that much anymore (i can sleep in a quiet room).

when i'm out at clubs (not playing) i wear these with the gold filters: http://www.enhancedlistening.co.uk/product.asp?P_ID=975

i should really get some molded ear plugs (not in-ear monitors) for general club use, but i got given these for free so.
 
Ditto on the limiter. It's a necessity if you use In-Ears for gigging in my opinion.
 
How much do in ear monitors cost? Do they EQ the sound or distort it, by how many dB?
I've seen monitors for €500-750. That's beyond my budget.

You can get Shure's low end for about 60€. Not the best sound (obviously) but they get the job done fine. The prices you are referring to are high end, surely custom molded, models. You can get even more expensive ones going up to nearly 1k.

The way they sound depends on the quality and the number of drivers. In general, the higher the grade, and therefore the more expensive, the better sound you are going to get. So this can vary a lot. For the best sound triple drivers are the way to go but they are very expensive.
 
Im actually happier using Etymotic BABY BLUES, they're small(er) and you can adjust the amount of seal, something you can't do with molded plugs

This is very, very inadvisable. Not inserting ear plugs properly (i.e. inserting them only halfway in) will decrease the amount of protection you're getting drastically. It might sound less noisy to you, but your ears will be receiving a lot more db's than you're aware of.

I advise it, especially between songs when you're trying to hear people speak. Molded plugs do not take to handling well once in the ear. Silicone also hardens after time and shrinks a little.

I wanted to love my $200 Westones and did for years, but came to realize it was mainly b/c they were custom molded and cost $200 and not that they did anything better than the $12 earplugs I use now.
 
I advise it, especially between songs when you're trying to hear people speak. Molded plugs do not take to handling well once in the ear. Silicone also hardens after time and shrinks a little.
You can also advise using toothpicks for earplugs, but that doesn't mean it's a good idea ;)

In between songs, if the background noise isn't at dangerous levels, it's obviously OK to partially or completely remove plugs. But when playing it's simply a bad idea, because you'll most likely be receiving less protection than is needed. If you feel the plugs you're using at the moment attenuate the sound too much, buy plugs which remove less dB.

Mind you, I'm not talking about custom molded vs. standard earplugs here. Not inserting plugs properly is unwise no matter what kind you use. Here's some info on fitting earplugs:
http://www.e-a-r.com/pdf/hearingcons/earlog19.pdf

On the topic of custom molded plugs, it seems there's a few problems with them that often get overlooked:
http://www.e-a-r.com/pdf/hearingcons/Custom_Earplugs_v2.pdf
 
Hearos Rock n Roll plugs are rated at 22dB and don't mess with clarity at all. They also cost five bucks.

I'm not sure spending an extra few hundred for 3dB more of protection is cost effective...
 
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