Earplugs For Artful Living

2 CommentsFriday • July 29, 2011 • by Imei

“What did you say?”

“Could you repeat what you just said?”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t hear that. Could you speak up?”

“Huh?”

When a young person asks these questions a few too many times, I visibly swallow hard before asking a question of my own: when’s the last time you had your hearing checked?

More and more young people are showing up with mild to moderate hearing loss, and the sad fact is this: most of them do not even know they have suffered a loss. While second hand smoke exposure may be the cause of some hearing loss (as found in a research study published in Archives of Otolaryngology — Head and Neck Surgery), the main reason for hearing loss in young people is exposure to loud noises. The culprit: earbuds connected to personal players blasting loud music (above 85 decibles, which is approximately the sound of a vacuum cleaner). While there are other loud sounds that can cause hearing loss, there is a definite connection between extended earbud use at higher decibles and hearing loss. Here’s why I’m buying custom ear plugs for my artful life.

Blocking Out Noise: My Journey Into Headphones

Last year, I purchased a pair of Sony noise-canceling headphones. They were reasonably priced, and they do the trick as an over-the-ear headset to protect my ears from the noise of construction around my office in Pioneer Square, as well as block out most of the world of sound when I’m working on something that needs my full attention. Because of the dangers of hearing loss while using earbuds, I not only abandoned my higher-end earbuds for my iPod/iPhone4, I even switched to a Bluetooth for the phone.

I love my noise-canceling headphones, but there are limits of usefulness.

Problem: as an artist, wearing noise-canceling headphones in loud places is not socially acceptable, nor is it practical. Can you imagine wearing these in a bar? [real date-killer, I'd say]. How about at a rock concert? [so dorky]. Worse yet, at a musician and dancer practice [I'd be afraid to insult others, but you can't dance with these on anyway].  Even if you sleep alone in an apartment near a busy street, headphones just aren’t practical, unless you like to sleep on your back the entire night. After the second time of having to run out of concert because the sound was unbearable with a pair of standard commercial earplugs, I was gifted with a fitting for Musicians Earplugs by Etymotic Research Inc.  In a few weeks, I’ll have pair of custom-molded silicone earplugs designed to protect my ears from some of the loudest musical sources of noise, so I can get on with my artful living in style.

Why Commercial Ear Plugs Might Not Be Good Enough For You

Standard commercial ear plugs do a fair job of blocking some noise. They are cheaper, and if you’re lucky, you might be able to get a good enough seal around the plug to get away with them for things like riding the bus or hoping a plane. However, they aren’t designed to fit into the second bend of the ear canal (the part that is in front of the ear drum). Without a good seal, sound slips around a commercial ear plug, and you can still get hearing damage. In my case, I discovered that I have very tiny ear canals; the commercial plugs, while much better than those yellow or orange foam plugs you see handed out at rock concerts, left my ears exposed to sound. Within minutes of the opening band, I left the room, my left ear in particular throbbing in pain.

Foam plugs essentially muffle sound. If you were using them in a noisy restaurant, you would not be able to hear the music well, nor hear conversations distinctly. In my case, I wouldn’t even have hope of getting a foam ear plug deeply embedded in the canal to reduce the sound into a safer level. Additionally, the lack of poor seal causes the wearer to hear a low, boomy sound in their own voice when speaking, singing, or playing certain instruments; this effect is called the occlusion effect. This effect is unpleasant [let's just leave it at this: yuck], and it’s the reason why wearing non-custom earplugs to bed is useless if you’re a snorer.

Custom Ear Plugs For High Fidelity

Up to this year, I hadn’t been to many loud concerts where I needed custom ear plugs. Suddenly, I found myself at more than a few [and I'm attending the Kansas concert on 07/31]. I can’t figure out if venues are having to turn up the volume because so many attendees have hearing loss, but whatever the reason, it’s just a wall of sound falling on your head. In one case, the speakers were turned up so loud, each bass note blew my clothes a couple of centimeters! Custom ear plugs do not simply muffle the sound; they allow music and speech to be heard in high fidelity (trueness) but at a safer loudness level.

Custom ear plugs give you high fidelity and protection from hearing loss.

The set of ER-25 plugs I was gifted with come with removable, interchangeable attenuator buttons that reduce sound  through the difference ranges (or frequencies) of sound. A tiny cotton tampon attached to a string is placed against the drum before squirting a generous dollop of cold silicon in the ear. After about five minutes, the silicon is poped out of your ear by pulling on the string.  Silicon in your ear is a weird sensation, like having a pet salamander lick inside your ear ever-so-slowly with the world’s coldest tongue. My ear canals were so tiny, the first round didn’t work; we had to do a second round.

You can choose from a multitude of solid colors, color swirls (up to three colors), and even have each plug designated a different color (for ease of identifying right and left). There’s even choices with sparkles. Button colors are limited to five colors. I decided to order mine in bright, Wonder Woman-esque colors, so that I wouldn’t easily misplace them.

In a few weeks, I’ll return to the office for a fitting to make sure the custom plugs create the seal needed to protect my hearing. To be honest, I’m looking forward to not only using them at concerts where I’m the listener, but possibly also performances where I am the dancer in a live music setting. With as many performances as bellydancers have in a year, we’re exposed to very loud music in high frequencies, including zills and high-pitched tablas. While my first bellydance teacher used to laugh about how all dancers go deaf after their first 10 years, I’m hoping to be the exception while being in perfect sync. And I can’t say that the plugs won’t get some use in my building on an occasional noisy evening.

Do you own musician’s earplugs? Have you thought about getting them? Does this article make you think twice before you scream some music through your earbuds? Ever read Apple’s recommendation regarding earbuds and iPod use? Please share your stories. But I hope they don’t start with, “I can’t hear you.”

P.S. Here’s my new earplugs. A different color for each ear, in swirling colors.

My earplugs. Shown: the filter in place.