Do you protect your ears?

[Chris Harding]

The industrial ones for me are better and more convenient than the pharmaceutical ones. The latter are just loose bits of silicone or foam and if you take them out and drop them they are gone. The undustrial ones (ours are either bright yellow or orange are tougher but the big advantage is they have a string on them so you have slip the coupled pair around your neck and just tuck the buds under your collar and they are ready to use when need and you don't lose 'em either ... Worksafe style stores have them!

I have also used earbugs plugged into nothing...they do help!!

Chris

[Brian David Melnyk]

I have a pair of these that I combine with the orange -32db foam earplugs when really loud:

Amazon.com: Howard Leight by Honeywell R-01902 Impact Pro Electronic Shooting Earmuffs: Home Improvement

You can plug a camera into them to hear audio, they are noise cancelling, and you can also hear conversations around you. They are big, but if you want great protection and versatility, these may be the best. I wish I had these 20 years ago...

[Josh Bass]

Do you guys who used custom molded plugs or those corkscrew pasta lookin' ones find them comfortable? In ear stuff always made me itchy/irritated after a while, but I've only used the el cheapo foamy plugs passed out in large quantities. One problem is they never really feel like they're IN, more like they're always on the verge of falling out.

[James Stevens]

Thanks for all your replies, I didnt realise this was such a common thing. Thankfully my hearing came back after a day or so but it really freaked me out, I thought the tinitus was permanent and felt like suing the DJ for ruining my life. But I recovered, but am now definitely the wiser. What was insane was that parents were holding 3 month old babies really close to the speakers, and the babies acted like it was nothin' ! Not in the least bit upset... unless they were already deaf from the exposure, but I thought it was extremly dangerous to expose young children to this level of noise as their ears are much less protected.

Thanks for all the tips!

[Don Bloom]

James,
I shot NASCAR racing and sometimes you flip a coin and end up being the camera tech instead of an operator. I'm talking about the remote controlled cameras that are along the wall of the track. The ops can be as far as 1/4 mile away from the cameras but the tech is in a golf cart (need to be able to cover at least 1/2 half of the track quickly so the might be 2 techs and we're on the rim road not on the actual track of course). anyway, there are 43 very high horsepower cars going as fast as 200+ MPH (depending on the track) and as you can imagine it is extremely loud. Some people use the little foam ear plugs, personally I used Clark muffs since I was on a radio that had the director and my crew chief on it so I could hear all that was going on and we could communicate.
I can't tell you how many people I saw that had no ear protection at all. OK as an adult they made they're own decision BUT the kids (NASCAR is a family oriented type activity) of all ages from 2 or 3 years old (maybe some younger) would be there at the track, again these are 850 horsepower cars and there are 43 of them (at least to start) and the noise level is beyond belief. these kids for the most part didn't have ear protection and while I was marveling at the idiocy of the parents I of course could not say anything.
I could only guess how much the little ones ears hurt after a 500 mile race.
Protect your ears, you only have 2 and they don't re-grow. Cover them with good muffs or at least decent headphones. The hearing you save will be you're own!