Do you think that hearing protection is of any value?

I must confess I used to not think so, but as I have gotten older and hopefully smarter I've changed my mind. It doesn't take very long for hearing damage to occur at the noise levels we experience when riding. Watch this video a buddy posted on you tube...very enlightening.

By all means, protect your hearing. Believe me, hearing aids are no fun, not to mention ridiculously expensive.

Not only does it preserve my hearing, I find I'm more rested at the end of the day.

I use the foam ones, they work fine. You can get a box of 200 pair for under $25. It's important that you

Do you think that hearing protection is of any value?

Morning Sam

Yes, very-very-very valuable. Unfortunately a lot of us oldtimers didn't realize this until too late in life to preserve our hearing.

Unfortunately a lot of us older riders grew up in the early 2 cycle dirt bike & snowmobile era. To get decent power from those we would add expansion chambers with tuned stingers. The decibel levels from those stingers was not only extremely damaging to our hearing but in some cases it would even make our ears bleed.

If I could go back in life the one thing that I would definitely do differently is to use good quality ear protection when using chain saws, shooting, & riding motorcycles.

No question about it, protect those eardrums.! Even with years of constant use of protection while I was on the job which protection was required, even double ear protection such as plugs and muffs,. I get evaluated yearly. There has been hearing loss, but not at the frequency of normal speech. Most of that has been attributed to age. Nothing will stop that. The frequencies that small children can hear is much greater than those that are even teen-agers. When I ride for hours on end, plugs to me are required. As stated, they do get out of position and become useless. Make sure to try several bands and see what works for you. I prefer the pilot brand which are a bit more than the usual toss aways but they work for me. Can you listen to music on the helmet headset? Yes, it would be muffled just a bit but it will help pass the time while riding long distance.

What?

What?

...so you're the guy I've been waiting.

In the 70's I started out running heavy equipment. The company provided foam ear plugs. Didn't push whether you used them or not, they just had to have them to meet OSHA regulations. I soon found out, or figured out, that if you got used to wearing the foam ear plugs you would soon adapt to them and they were comfortable for all day use.

I also very quickly figured out that you were less tired after 10 hour of being on a bulldozer in a rockpile when wearing the ear plugs! Your ears didn't ring for a couple hours after work each day. Even when Caterpillar came out with cabs on equipment that supposedly met noise requirements, I found earplugs allowed me to hear better and be less fatigued.

I am around friends now that didn't wear ear plugs like I did when we were in the industry. Many have hearing issues. I don't.......

I worked flight line and flight deck in the Navy. We were required to wear hearing protection every time we went out. I used ear muff types and then when the tinnitus started I used the rubber flanged ones and muffs. I now have hearing aids and the ringing is sometimes very loud. Wear your earplugs!! Once it is gone it will not come back.

Do you think that hearing protection is of any value?

 

Morning Sam

 

Unfortunately a lot of us oldtimers didn't realize this until too late in life to preserve our hearing.

 

I'd be in that boat! Wish I could go back in time and rethink that one.

Dave

Do you think that hearing protection is of any value?

 

Morning Sam

 

Unfortunately a lot of us oldtimers didn't realize this until too late in life to preserve our hearing.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I'd be in that boat! Wish I could go back in time and rethink that one.

 

Dave

Same here, raced sportscars about thirty years, never used them because I wanted to be able hear any impending hint of a mechanical failure, the stuff's expensive. One year after the 12 Hours of Sebring my ears rang for three days.

I usually had a fairly lax doctor do my yearly race physical but one year had to go to different clinic. The nurse gave me a real hearing test behind a glass wall. She had a dial and asked about six times 'can you hear this?' I didn't know where the pass/fail barrier was so I just kept saying yes but the last two there was nothing.

Dumb? yes. Lucky? even more so, I can still hear most things OK, but high pitch and when there's a lot of background noise are the worst. Wear your dam earplugs!!

Oh, forgot. Was on the front row at a Who concert once, that probably didn't help either : )

Yes.

-MKL

Yes, very-very-very valuable. Unfortunately a lot of us oldtimers didn't realize this until too late in life to preserve our hearing....

 

If I could go back in life the one thing that I would definitely do differently is to use good quality ear protection when using chain saws, shooting, & riding motorcycles.

Amen to that. I would add lawnmowers and power tools (such as saws) to the list. I can hear surprisingly well in quiet environments, have trouble with conversation in noisy environments (like many restaurants), and I have tinnitus 7x24. Usually I can just tune out the tinnitus, so it's more of an annoyance than a handicap. However, if I get a sinus infection, it seems way louder.

I now wear over-the-ear sound protectors when doing yard work or using a chainsaw. Foam earplugs for anything but the shortest in-town ride. I think that one of the things that sneaks up on many riders (perhaps especially BMW owners) is that "I have a quiet bike, so I don't need hearing protectors." Not so; on a long ride wind and traffic noise can be quite damaging. I remember riding from Yosemite to LA 40 years ago with an open face helmet, and when I got off the bike at my wife's apartment, I was amazed at how quiet everything was. It sure was, because I had a substantial temporary hearing loss.

The problem with hearing damage is that it's cumulative. It's not just one super-loud event that does the damage (although it can), but more typically it's the sum of a lifetime of regularly loud events. As has been pointed out, lawn mowing, shooting, racing go-karts or sports cars, going to the drag races, music concerts, loud public venues. None of them may leave your ears ringing, but their cumulative effect is to cause damage that you will have to live with later on. If you're young, start wearing them now and protect what you have. If you already have hearing loss, start wearing them now and reduce the added effects of the loud events you're encountering in daily life.

My mother was a philharmonic pianist, fluent in 6 languages and used to pass the Mensa test for grins and giggles. IOW an amazing person and a wonderful Mom, to boot. Very challenging to try and outsmart or fool, although she enjoyed watching us try. Not because of hearing damage, but rather due to heredity, she lost her hearing completely by the time she was 70. She passed away last year at 91. The family tried hard to include her in everything, but she just wasn't able to keep up, and we watched as she slowly lost her social skills and retreated into a world of captioned TV and written notes (too old to learn sign language at 70, she said), and basically gave up on living, although a strong body kept her going at least a decade longer than she wanted. Hearing is probably the most important of the senses. Even people who are both blind and deaf say that hearing is the most important. Blindness is a 180-degree handicap. Hearing is a 360-degree handicap.

Protect your hearing at all cost.

Pistols, rifles, machine guns, explosives, helicopters all took their toll.

I have ear muffs hanging off my riding mower, push mower and near my power tools. None get their switch turned on without my muffs in place. I'm trying to save what little bit I have left. I do have hearing aids that help a great deal, especially with ambient noise around, but between the riding, it gets to be a slight chore to keep them handy.

While riding, I do wear either noise cancelling ear buds or ear plugs. Save it, it's all you've got.

Earring detection is great for some people. Not sure what this is doing on a motorcycle forum, though.

Earring detection is great for some people. Not sure what this is doing on a motorcycle forum, though.

I can't decide if your phone's spell-check has infected your brain or if it's too late for ear plugs to help you.

I would add lawnmowers and power tools (such as saws) to the list.

This. I have a box of Howard Leight Max disposable ear plugs in the garage for riding and for lawn-mowing, and another box in the basement for use with power tools. At 12.5 cents per pair, that's pretty cheap protection.

I've tried custom-molded earplugs. Plenty comfortable, but I've found that they don't protect as well as those disposable ones.

Earring detection is great for some people. Not sure what this is doing on a motorcycle forum, though.

 

I can't decide if your phone's spell-check has infected your brain or if it's too late for ear plugs to help you.

 

Eh?

I'm in a bit of a unique situation. I used to ride with plugs. But that was when I was on a cruiser with LOUD pipes and a half helmet.

Now that that I've switched to the RT and to a full faced Icon, I don't wear hearing protection. But that's because I already have hearing aides. I'm hard of hearing from birth. And it's specifically in the voice range.

I don't ride with my aides in. No sense in amplifying road noise into my ears. And with the helmet, the don't fit anyway. I've noticed actually less issues after coming in from a road trip vs. with the plugs on my old bike. I have trouble popping my ears. Plugs after a longer ride make it harder for some odd reason.

But like I said, I'm a unique case. Unfortunately, that means my radio is useless. I still need to figure out a way to get the GPS voice in a manner I can hear it...

Now that that I've switched to the RT and to a full faced Icon, I don't wear hearing protection. But that's because I already have hearing aides. I'm hard of hearing from birth. And it's specifically in the voice range.

 

I don't ride with my aides in. No sense in amplifying road noise into my ears.

I'll leave it to an audiologist to confirm this, but I think loud noises can still damage your hearing even if you can't perceive those noises due to pre-existing damage. Afterall, the loud sounds are still bombarding the sensory organs.

I have no experience with Icon helmets, but Shoei helmets are regarded as being among the more quiet brands out there - and on my 1200RT, my Shoei is still loud enough so that I am compelled to wear hearing protection.

I lost well over 50% of my hearing as an adolescent (bad, repeated ear infections) and had to go to the ENT for years afterwards. I regained most of my hearing in the normal voice range, but never got back most of it above 12K Hz. When I started riding, this subject never came up, so I just put on the helmet and rode.

When I started back up again, and started reading here, I found out about earplugs and started wearing them. I still remember my first long ride (for me) on the RT. I was going out to Ohio in one day, about 400 miles. I stopped for lunch in western PA, and took out the earplugs to have a sit down meal. When I got back on the bike and took off, something was terribly wrong! Then I realized I hadn't put the earplugs back in, and stopped to do so. Much more relaxing without all the wind noise, that's for sure, and that's on an RT with the stock exhaust.

+1 for understanding how to put them in as well, makes a huge difference.

I have no experience with Icon helmets, but Shoei helmets are regarded as being among the more quiet brands out there - and on my 1200RT, my Shoei is still loud enough so that I am compelled to wear hearing protection.

I have a Shoei RF 1100 and consider it a quiet helmet. Just got a new Bell Star. It is quieter than the Shoei.

I have taken rides to town for stuff without any ear protection. I am sure that the noise levels are not all that high. But, It is still loud enough that there is no way I would take off at highway speeds for ANY length of trip without protection. And let me say that my bike is quieter than most with the screen I run.

Absolutely especially if you are running the interstate , nice slow rides on a two lane country road not really needed.

I wear ear plugs even when riding the Fly 150. Without them, the air blast is just too loud.

......

 

But like I said, I'm a unique case. Unfortunately, that means my radio is useless. I still need to figure out a way to get the GPS voice in a manner I can hear it...

Earbuds, with a small external amplifier, if needed! Hook that up to a bluetooth receiver, and you will be all set!

I always wear ear plugs... I have a couple of sets of custom fit plugs and a custom molded set of in-ear speakers that I connect to my SENA communications system when I want to hear GPS instructions or listen to music on long rides. The fact that they are custom molded allows me to do so at considerably lower volumes than with helmet speakers because the custom molded speakers block out all of the wind noise. Prior to getting the in-ear speakers, I used to have helmet speakers and I listened to them with ear plugs in. That allowed for lower volume as well, but certainly not as low as the custom molded in-ear set.

I've gotten so used to wearing them that I don't even like to drive a car with my windows rolled down at speeds above 25 MPH. The wind noise just irritates me.

 

I'll leave it to an audiologist to confirm this, but I think loud noises can still damage your hearing even if you can't perceive those noises due to pre-existing damage. Afterall, the loud sounds are still bombarding the sensory organs.

I don't have actual "damage". It's from birth loss, meaning I don't likely even have the enough of the sensory hairs to begin with.

But I could still lose hearing in the other parts of my hearing range. Shorter rides around town will likely be fine. But on a longer trip, I probably will stick the plugs in. I have 2 sets in my right cubby just in case.

I do think that it's essential to wear hearing protection. My early USAF days on the flightline robbed me of a bit of hearing in my left ear and, even absent engaging in damaging activities on a regular basis, hearing does diminish over time.

I've tried a variety of approaches, including the custom molded plugs you can often buy at rallies and shows, custom plugs from an audiologist, foam plugs, and, most recently, reusable Fusion plugs from Howard Leight. I got ten pairs from amazon for $19.95.

Of all that I've used, the custom audiologist's plugs were the best, extremely comfortable and effective, but $100-plus for the fitting and the earplugs themselves. The foam plugs work well, but I find that after I've had them in for a few hours, it's painful to remove them.

The Fusion plugs work well for me on the RT, which has pretty good wind protection with the Werks Quiet Ride windshield. The offer 27 dB of noise reduction, which is less than some of the Leight foam plugs, but they're consistently comfortable, washable, and reusable. Having purchased ten sets, I should be okay for a while, even occasionally misplacing one or two. The only caveat I'd offer is that I haven't worn them on a really long day of riding; for the shorter trips (up to a couple of hours), they've worked well.

Apart from the benefit of avoiding hearing loss, I'll echo what a couple of people have already noted--reducing wind roar from riding offers substantial benefits in terms of reducing fatigue and maintaining alertness. Apart from super short rides, I always wear them.

Yes. Absolutely. No question. Full stop.

I've had the same experience as Mike with the foam plugs, in that I find them painful to remove after a few hours.

Just invested in a new helmet though (to go with my new bike) and the combination seems pretty quiet to me. The helmet is modular but is supposedly a very good at providing noise protection. That's certainly how I feel.

Bike: BMW R1200RT LE [2014]

Helmet: Schubert C3 Pro

My employees found those plugs uncomfortable to wear all day longs. This link is for their plugs that puts less pressure on the ear but still has a rating of 30 dB.

http://www.howardleight.com/earplugs/max-lite

My employees found those plugs uncomfortable to wear all day longs. This link is for their plugs that puts less pressure on the ear but still has a rating of 30 dB.

 

http://www.howardleight.com/earplugs/max-lite

I have some of the Small's for times when the Laser Lite's have been causing discomfort.

Howard Leight does a good job of providing options.

I've had the same experience as Mike with the foam plugs, in that I find them painful to remove after a few hours.

I put in a long day riding over the weekend and wanted to note that the Howard Leight Fusion plugs really worked well. Overall noise reduction is somewhat less than with the foam plugs I've used, but it's more than adequate; in a way it's nice that a little more sound gets through--I can hear the mechanical sounds of my RT while still achieving a significant amount of overall noise reduciton.

They're a bit easier to insert since they don't have to be rolled and compressed to insert them, and they remained comfortable throughout the day. They come with a cord that can be detached if you'd rather use them in that configuration. They hit a pretty good spot in terms of ease of use, effectiveness, and cost. At about two bucks a set, they look to be reusable many times. This is one of those areas where what works best will vary considerably from person to person, but if the foam plugs aren't quite cutting it for you, the Fusion earplugs might be worth trying.

My wife and I bought an assortment of foam ear plugs from an online store, and we were able to settle on a set that worked for both of us. It's worth noting that there are different sizes and shapes of plugs, so if one set causes you pain there is likely a solution.

I use the Howard Leight plugs also, box of a bunch is cheap from Amazon, they are comfortable

Yes. Absolutely. No question. Full stop.

Hear, hear.

Regardless of what type/mfr of plugs, the NRR (Noise Reduction Rating) is the important part. It's a decibel number to indicate the amount of reduction those plugs provide. More is better. My current plugs rate at 33 db reduction. Easy to find, even Wal-mart & Target have them in boxes of 20-50.

In the old days in the USAF I ran heavy equipment and used both in-the-ear plugs and over-the-ear ear muffs at the same time. Provided over 50 decibels of noise reduction and allowed me to enjoy ruining my hearing at rock concerts as intended. I, like many others above, use them for highway/high speed riding but not for under 50 mph two lane meandering.

I've experienced some hearing loss from the old days of riding without a helmet. The wind rushing by unprotected ears at any rate of speed can produce damage. I use foam ear plugs that seem to work pretty well and have at least a 30 dB rating. The biggest issue I seem to have is that they dry my ears out and become itchy after a few hours.

Is hearing protection of any value ?

Depends if you are married to a nagging wife or not.

I notice a significant reduction in fatigue when I wear my custom molded ear plugs. I can keep them in for hours (foams bother me) the the reduction in noise is good. I can still hear my music through the Sena. Less fatigue equals better attention to the road, and better safety for me.

I'm sure that the noise at highway speeds on my RT, even with my Schuberth helmet, is enough for long-term hearing damage. While I can't measure sound levels in my helmet, I know from my work some of the sound levels that can cause hearing damage. In fact, I have some work related hearing damage, and want to do all I can to preserve my hearing.

Yes, wear ear plugs, not music ear buds.

I came across another solution that seems to be a good option to consider: Radians custom-molded earplugs.

Years ago, I bought a similar pair at an IMS show. They were comfortable, easy to use, and lasted for years. This is the D-I-Y version, selling for $10.10 on Amazon. Making them involves mixing together two putty-like pieces of material, taking a couple of minutes to stuff them into your ear canal and mold them to your outer ear, then waiting 10-15 minute for them to cure. Pretty easy. My results were not quite as picture perfect as the ones you pay $20-25 for at the shows, but they certainly work just as well.

They claim 26 dB of noise reduction, and that seems about right, based on my experience with other earplugs. That little divot on one of them is something I placed there to make it easier to figure out at a glance which ear they go into.

Flight line without protection, the usual lawn mowers and other assorted noises, including an overly excited hunting partner 2 feet from my unprotected right ear, have left me with tinnitus and hearing issues 24/7 also. After numerous experiments I settled on the Radians. My first pair lasted over a year until I dropped them and didn't realize it until I tried to put them in again. Never found them. My second set works just as well. They are easy to form and are fitted to your ear shape and contours. I forget they are in. I can hear the wind wave from other vehicles are around me in traffic.

Definitely protect your hearing.

Yes, I have found that if nothing else besides damage, they allow you to ride or drive longer because your mind has less info to process all day long.

Sub-consciously open ears are recording everything you hear.

WHAT??