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Hearing Protection Measurements

_thelaughingman

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Those Hearos earplugs are good and fit snug without sticking out straight.
 
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Jdunk54nl

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Jdunk54nl

Jdunk54nl

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Those Hearos earplugs are good and fit snug without sticking out straight.
Ya, they look very similar to a bunch of others like Etymotic, eagasms, etc. And the hearos are one of the cheapest.
 

Wolf

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Howard Leight put specs on the box for some foam plugs and it looks like attenuation there is basically correlated with frequency. .

That's the brand I was trying to think of referencing tapered plugs. I could not get those things to seal worth a darn.
Sorry about the misconception of the OP, but I was thinking of performance under the same criteria.
 
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Jdunk54nl

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Helicopter and myself are going to send Amir some in ear hearing protection in June.

If anyone else wants to see some tested, either let us know which ones (if they aren't too expensive I can send them to Amir as well), or we can time it right to where you can send them to Amir to be tested. Or you can PM me and we can work something out to where you pay for them but I send them with my choices.
 

aviavi

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Hi. Do you know if these measurements were ever done? I'm very interested in the outcome and comparisons. I'm a musician and have worn custom-fitted plugs for years, mostly Sensaphonics with ER-15 filters. They work well, and are better than any off-the-shelf plugs I've tried, but aren't perfect, and are certainly not flat - just not as muffled as normal plugs.
I'd be curious about the Decibullz, Etymotic Music Pro Elite and Loop ear plugs, in addition to the ones you list.
 

TheBatsEar

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Jdunk54nl

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We sent @amirm a bunch last June. I’ve contacted him a bit ago and he said it won’t be too much longer to get these tested.
 

Helicopter

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@Jdunk54nl and I sent Amir a bunch of hearing protection last Summer, but he hasn't gotten to them yet. Mine were a donation. I didn't set the expectation he would test all of them.
 
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MattHooper

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Maybe not exactly apropos of the thread subject but...

I've been using hearing protection for along time. Not just the standard foam (and other) ear plugs. I've had plenty of "musicians ear plugs" custom made, of various types from different hearing centers. They do indeed attenuate the sound levels while leaving good speech intelligeability but the one main disapointment is many of these CLAIM to also reduce the "bad sound of your voice with earplugs." That muffled resonant quality of your own voice with ear plugs. That's never been the case for me. In fact if anything I've found the custom made ear plugs are even worse. I hear the person I'm speaking to clearly, but my voice is this droning, muffled, super resonant annoyance.
 

tecnogadget

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I’ve been using ER20XS for years. Love how easy to wear in and out they are. The “hi-fi” profile of its acoustic filter design, how you keep listening to people speaking to you, like if you had just turned down the volume knob if life. I really enjoy hoy you listen to music at festivals or discos with these.

You can also add Flare Audio “Isolate Mini” Aluminum/Titanium to the list, these I would call extreme hearing protection at an even higher level of fidelity. These protectors are like no other, almost totally “blocking” direct sound, and making you mostly listen through bone conduction. Deep subBass like this is something to be heard in order to be understood. You “feel” the notes with your body instead of “listening” to them, the fidelity is like no other, they are a must for high spl festival or venues, it gives you a vastly superior experience in all sense tha naked unprotected ear.
 

somebodyelse

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The musicians' earplug question has come up again, so I'm still hoping we'll see some measurements. I'm surprised it's not made its way into the feature set of noise cancelling headphones.
 

Helicopter

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The musicians' earplug question has come up again, so I'm still hoping we'll see some measurements. I'm surprised it's not made its way into the feature set of noise cancelling headphones.
Amir indicated he needs to come up with a new methodology to test hearing protection, and that hurdle is what has delayed him getting started on this project. I suppose he has to figure out what kind of transducers to use for test tones and such, and then he has to figure out how to control the test results for the transducers somehow to show what the earplugs are actually doing.

He could just measure DCA Stealth with some earplugs in and see what happens / publish the charts, but I think he wanted to isolate the earplugs from the test tones better than that.
 
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Jdunk54nl

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Wirecutter did do some measurements of a few different ones (and a couple of similar ones) to what we sent to @amirm .

So there is at least someone else doing some of this, and they have set a procedure that @amirm could follow.

Side note: I bought the loops and they were great for sitting and not moving but were terrible in helmet on a motorcycle. They have a resonance right at what the wind hits my helmet and actually caused the wind noise to be louder. This was with or without the extra attenuation piece.
If you are going to wear them in motorsports, I do not recommend the Loop's. My etymotics are amazing here and are my current choice until more results of hearing protection come in.
 

gnarliest_gnome

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Did anything ever come of this? It seems to me like Amir could place a speaker in from of the headphone rig, measure the FR, then put the plug in and measure the FR. Then plot the difference between the two.
 

aviavi

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Did anything ever come of this? It seems to me like Amir could place a speaker in from of the headphone rig, measure the FR, then put the plug in and measure the FR. Then plot the difference between the two.
And in addition to this, an in-Amir-ear test where you put a plug in one ear, play pink noise and music through headphones, and eq the side with the earplug to subjectively match the side without.
 

gnarliest_gnome

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And in addition to this, an in-Amir-ear test where you put a plug in one ear, play pink noise and music through headphones, and eq the side with the earplug to subjectively match the side without.
No. This is Audio SCIENCE Review. We don't need some half-assed subjective test like that. Maybe a comfort and stability test sure.
 
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