Hearing Protection
Hi Guys,
What hearing protection do you all use, if any, on stage and equally important at home with a small amp?
I wear hearing protection with my work, but when I wear musician earplugs when I play amplified harmonica at home with my windy city 10 it is difficult to hear in enough detail and so usually take them out, but I am going to kill what's left of my hearing if I continue this way.
Recommendations for something that takes the harshness away but still allows you to hear quite clearly would be great please?
Thanks for your interesting reply. I try to keep my practice amp to a sensible level, but as you said, volume and exposure time are improtant factors and it doesn't need to be particularly loud to damage hearing if exposed consistently over time.
Scorny:
I have an effective sound-level alarm system here at home. If the amp in my practice room is turned up too loud, she comes upstairs and in no uncertain terms tells me I'm risking my hearing health.
But more seriously, re clubs and other venues: I always carry a pair of inexpensive Etymotic Research earplugs in my pocket when I'm going to a jam, show or concert. While some venues I regularly visit are pretty good about keeping sound levels at a healthy level, there are others where if I'm listening, I take out the hearing aids I've been wearing the past few years, and put the earplugs in.
Were I a regularly-gigging pro, I'd probably pick up a set of hearing-protective ear monitors and make sure they were effectively set up when I was on stage. But I'm strictly an amateur, and believing that hearing damage is a function of both volume and exposure time, when it's my turn to be on stage in a jam, I just take the earlplugs out for that brief time. But then again, the jam I usually attend is actually a pretty low-volume one.
Finally, re hearing aids: I spent a good deal of my youth playing in rock and roll bands in an era when there were really no PA systems, and no mic'ing of amps. Instead, the bigger the venue, the bigger the amps (both instrumental and vocal) that we set up behind us on stage. There are a lot of environmental causes of hearing loss, including work situations, military service, etc. (My late Dad had a hearing loss range that was consistent with time he spent in the Navy in two wars, as an officer supervising ship gunnery.) When I finally was diagnosed by an audiologist, he said that my hearing test graph was consistent with younger years spent too close to my guitar amp.