The case against earplugs

[Hollowway]

I've got friends that say the same thing. And there's no use arguing with them. Just do your thing. This is just another topic that, when certain people disagree with me, it just convinces me more that I'm doing the right thing.

 

[GSingleton]

As a percussion teacher, I heavily encourage ear plugs. I require my students to buy them or invest in a high quality pair

 

[wilch]

^^I meant arguments in favor of using them, to try to convince people, but thanks anyway

I'm 33 and have damaged hearing from not using earplugs. It was out of pure laziness that I didn't use earplugs when younger, 17-20. I regret the times that I didn't use earplugs. Rehearsing in a tiled basement every week, for hours on end, with no earplugs.

The extent of the damage didn't occur to me until I was 21 or so. I was in an electronics prac at uni. We were studying waves, and had to put together a wave generator and a little speaker. Anyway, my prac partner and I put it together, and when I finished I flicked it on.

Then I started checking all the cables, flicking it on and off, tapping on the speaker. Over and over again. My lab partner asked,

"wil, what are you doin?"

To which I replied,

"It's not working, trying to find out why."

he then said,

"Are you serious? You can't hear that? It's f(*king loud."

....So I grabbed the frequency dial, and turned the frequency down. Suddenly I could hear it. There was a whole range that I couldn't hear at all, that EVERYONE else in the room could.

That scared me. Scared me lots.

Fast forward to now and I avoid situations where there's lots of people talking/music/noise and someone trying to talk to me. Why? Because I can't actually control my ability to "tune in" to the one person that's talking to me. Most people can. But to me all the sounds turn into a jumbled mess.

When you're in situations like the one I mentioned above you end up nodding and smiling alot. Which is just annoying.

There are cheap Etymotic ear plugs (ER20's) that decrease the volume of things but don't muffle things. They work, and they help you keep all your hearing.

Knowing that people can hear things that I can't get's on my nerves. Protect your hearing people!

 

[benduncan]

im very concerned about my hearing. i dont really care about not being able to hear people when im older. or having the tv loud, but losing frequencies and then not being able to hear my guitar tone or my musics mix correctly. then possibly having bad tone because it sounds different to me that it doesnt to most other people

i started wearing ear plugs at concerts when i was 20 though i admit i will take them out for one or two songs, my favorites, lol. but i never knew more expensive pairs wouldnt muffle the sound so that will solve that.

but another problem remains. i basicly have music blasting in my ears 24/7. i wake up, work out with ear buds in, i try to keep it low though. then i record guitar/mix guitar, i use headphones. i usually have it pretty loud here, then ill drive somewhere and have my mix that i just bounced loud in the car.

 

[ASoC]

When I play in a band, I use hearing protection. But as a trumpet player, I never do. It makes everything really weird for me, most likely because you use air for horns and not for guitar

 

[glpg80]

I have three sets of ear plugs. A set for music, a set for metal working/grinding in the shop, and a set of ear muffs for very long or very short intervals of noise.

I already have Tinnitus at 24, but this is due to medical complications and not dB abuse.

Treasure your hearing!

 

[Sam MJ]

If I were you I would just start talking quieter around them and tell your mates to stop shouting all the time.

(even if they're talking normally)

 

[Jimby Pearadoople]

I am thirty and my hearing is shot.
I spent years in bands playing Metal and going to Metal shows. Then a manager at WalMart screamed over the p.a. one night and...well I don't know if you'd call it blowing my eardrums out but I guess you could. What followed was a ringing in my ears (tinnitus) that kept me up for weeks and weeks. WalMart wouldn't cover the doctors visit and now, a year later, my ears ring all the time.

All that stuff about only living once is b.s.
If there is a lot of white noise (like a chatty bar or heavy traffic) I only pick up on about half of what people say to me. I'm constantly asking my girlfriend to repeat things.

It sucks because I want to be a recording engineer...own my own label and whatnot. Editing music exacerbates the tinnitus. The tinnitus makes me irate and short with people in frustrating situations.

Beyond that, I've not been able to find a job since quitting WalMart for being treated like a con artist. I've had no choice but to drop out of college. And every single day I wake up to the tinnitus.

Earplugs may look lame but so is being an illogical, unsupportive jerk.
The only people that will rib you for weariing earplugs are man's men. Just tell them to go hunt or watch sports.

 

[SD83]

"You only live once"

Isn't that the perfect reason to keep your body in the best possible condition? I can't even imagine being at a gig without earplugs. Or in a club although I have to say, at least here, concerts are about 4 times as loud. When I was younger I didn't care that much (still wearing earplugs), but these days I really wonder, does it have to be THAT loud? I get into the venue, opposite site of the stage, room full of people, and it fucking hurts without earplugs. Why? What's even worse, I know a handfull of people where I can't even sit in their cars without wearing earplugs, the entire car is vibrating and it sounds like shit... the absolute worst case of idiocy when it comes to destroying your ability to hear might be in-ear-headphones at a volume where you can identify the song from 5 metres distance.
Ask your friends to do a professional hearing test. Around here, there are lots of possibilities to do them for free. Maybe the difference between what they SHOULD be hearing at their age and what they acutally CAN hear gets some of them thinking. Well, or maybe they just think it's cool. Like, scars from a fight or other "manly" stuff...

 

[The Grief Hole]

Tinnitus ain't no joke. Wasn't there a guy who committed suicide because he was a long time sufferer?

Ye. he stabbed himself to death because of it. Somewhere in England.

 

[Goro923]

the absolute worst case of idiocy when it comes to destroying your ability to hear might be in-ear-headphones at a volume where you can identify the song from 5 metres distance.

I was on the bus yesterday and I turned off my music for a bit to let my ears breathe. I heard music playing and figured the driver turned on the radio (which I don't think should be allowed, but that's for another thread ). Ten seconds later some girl walks right by me. Turns out the music was coming from her earphones

I think the general youth culture and mindset (at least here in Spain) that revolves around getting wasted at clubs that play music at obscene volumes and in turn makes people have to listen to music at progressively louder levels (usually with awful earphones) are contributing to my generation being the one with the absolute worst hearing.

 

[Double A]

Take it from a 30 year old dude with tinnitus, (I have had tinnitus my whole life but it is a lot worse now), people that don't wear earplugs because of some false machismo male bullshit are the real pussies.

 

[kylendm]

This thread inspired me to pickup the hifi hearos. They work awesome!

 

[BlackMastodon]

I get these from work and they have always served me well at local shows where our sound guys don't know a mixing board from their ass:
Howard Leight | Laser Lite Earplugs
My buddies that come with me kinda give me a funny look when I put them in but they never call me a pussy, maybe a couple times in an obviously joking way. Usually half way through the night they ask me for a pair since I bring a pair for everyone just in case.
They do tend to muffle the sound now that I think about it so I think I will invest in a pair of those ER-20s.

As for in-ear headphones, I use these:
Air Cushion Inner-ear Headphones - HA-FX67
and I absolutely love them. They basically work like cheaper ear plugs when they are off or quiet which is perfect for working in a factory. Plus I don't have to turn up the volume to obscene levels and damage my hearing.

I'm glad I started doing this early on just to protect the hearing I still had even though I was afraid I already did a bit of damage. When I got hired at my job and they did the hearing test for me I learned that my hearing was actually still pretty good. Crisis averted.

 

[GuitaristOfHell]

I wear ear protection to every band practice.

 

[neotronic]

maybe they don't hear you explainning it, because the are already deaf...?

 

[chickenxnuggetz91]

At least you wouldn't be able to hear them call you "pussy" or say YOLO anymore. JK, in all seriousness it's good you use your earplugs. I use them at most shows. I made the mistake one time of not bringing them because I thought "Meh, it's a small show, I won't need them." I didn't until this experimental band came up and the guitar player turned his Mesa Rect literally all the way up and was using a whammy pedal, boutique overdrive, and oscillating with an analog delay. Gone to plenty of shows, but I'm pretty sure that was the first one where I noticed a loss in my ability to hear clearly, even days after.

 

[Murmel]

I can understand horn players not wanting to wear earplugs. In my previous band we had a trombonist and a trumpet/horn player. They never wore earplugs unless we were rehearsing or having a gig.
If they were doing orchestral stuff they'd just give you a "wtf" look if you even suggested it

 

[ROB SILVER]

There simply is no case against ear plugs.

Having said that, I've never been in a band where I wasn't the only person that used ear plugs.

 

[icos211]

This is why I love one of the sound guys here at House of Blues in Dallas. I don't know who he is, but he is a genius. I went to an Amon Amarth show a while back at HOB, and you could hear every note as clear as a bell, and it was loud enough to be enjoyable but even standing right in front of the stage with my head practically in the speaker cone of some of the monitors (as usual), sounded pretty quiet. My ears did not ring at all the next morning. Saw Apocalyptica and it was the same way. However, there have been shows there that were definitely *not* that way.

Sure hope he does the Dethklok show.