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Best concert earplugs for noise protection and sound quality

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Would love if you could add vetting for the severe-profound sector sometime too, at this end of the market we need to have the best of the very best.

Is it targeting the crowd and those interested in preserving hearing? They already have the test equipment so why not rate an adjacent category of items.

Hearing loss does not make it safe to go to a loud concert without some level of protection. Are you saying the site should rate over the ear protection that can be used with hearing aids?

Of course I do not suggest that people go to loud concerts without protection
but I do rather expect that a team member of Hearing Tracker would stay with Hearing problems. I think, because my hearing is so severely affected, I am being selfish. I apologize.

In reply to @user490

@user490 said:

Aren’t some concerts louder than 120 dBA? It could be helpful to provide safe exposure time ratings at more than one sound level.

Yeah, it basically goes to zero minutes pretty quickly even with plugs… especially if you use the standard, which we don’t…

In reply to @maggie07

@maggie07 said:

Why would you push ear plugs for the people who wear hearing aids??

People with hearing loss should absolutely be protecting their hearing in dangerously loud environments. But, to answer your question, the work is not specifically targeted towards people with hearing loss or hearing aids. We’re interested in overall hearing health, from preservation to treatment.

My audiologist said I should wear earplugs when playing in the Brass Band and when at concerts to protect my remaining hearing.

Edited

In reply to @maggie07

@maggie07 said:

Why would you push ear plugs for the people who wear hearing aids??

It’s simple. Assuming no conductive hearing loss, only sensorineural:

  1. Very loud sound reaches the eardrum with excessive power.

  2. This causes overly energetic vibration of the ear ossicles, which is conducted to the oval window of the cochlea.

  3. This in turn causes excessive fluid movement in the cochlea with the same energy in people with normal hearing as well as in people with hearing loss.

  4. Excessive fluid movement may cause damage to delicate structures in the inner ear, which may lead to further deterioration of hearing.

I think (but only theorize) that people with hearing loss, who already have damaged cochlea structures, are more prone to further injury than people with normal hearing.

It’s because the excessive energy of fluid movement in the cochlea is what damages hearing, not our subjective feeling of sound power.

Quite as people with a crack in the bone are more likely to have it broken in the case of the next injury than people with healthy bones (please correct me if my supposition is wrong).

People with hearing loss have impaired stapedial reflex (and possibly also the function of the tensor tympani muscle). Normally that reflexes partially protect the cochlea from excessive vibration of the ear ossicles.

Not necessarily earplugs; it may also be something similar to headphones. Some people have rather flat hearing loss on an , so when earplugs give, for example, 25 attenuation at every frequency and music is ~100 dB, roughly 75 dB reaches your eardrum.

Another option is a second, occluding set of earmolds with no vent and a properly fitted ; possibly, compression may help.

In reply to @maggie07

Noise damage and hearing protection are very closely related to hearing problems. Why wouldn’t to want to know how to protect your hearing, what’s left of it? If I ever go to a loud concert again, I absolutely will think about ditching the hearing aids for ear plugs. In my as yet limited experience, hearing aids don’t do much good when it’s that loud anyway, and I have enough hearing left that I would still enjoy the music. I went clubbing a lot in my misspent youth, which may well have contributed to my hearing loss, and I certainly don’t want to lose more.

I’m so with you on this.

Shooting (wildfowl) as a boy, clubbing, putting on concerts and eventually running a nightclub.

I’m surprised I still have the hearing I do have.

Great work on the lab testing! It’s really helpful to have objective data on concert earplugs since the market is flooded with options and wildly varying claims.

@user490 makes a good point about exposure time at different levels. Most concerts sit around 100-115dBA, but some metal/EDM shows can peak at 120dBA+. Even with 15-20dB reduction from earplugs, you’re still looking at limited safe exposure time, especially for multi-day festivals.

For anyone looking at concert protection options, I found another resource that breaks down different earplug types and their use cases: live-quiet.com5. They have concert-specific options that might be worth comparing against your lab-tested results.

@maggie07 – your point about severe-profound hearing loss is valid too. Protection isn’t just for people with normal hearing. Even with existing hearing loss, further damage from loud environments is still a real risk. Over-ear protection that works with hearing aids would be a useful category to explore.

The key takeaway: any protection is better than none, but knowing the actual dB reduction (not just marketing claims) helps people make informed choices about exposure time and risk.

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