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Allow me to piggyback on to this post:
If you ride a motorcycle, you should be wearing earplugs. It's not the engine noise, it's the wind noise, even inside a good helmet. Yes, you will still be able to use your helmet intercom/headset. I recommend the silicone ear plugs with the tiny hard plastic insert, both for comfort (because they sit very flush) and headset (I can hear my headset perfectly).
Yes, you will still be able to use your helmet intercom/headset.
Earplugs will actually significantly improve your experience. It's much easier to hear everything without the constant wind noise.
When I used "regular" foam earplugs, I could only really use the headset under 70MPH. With the "filtered" ones, I can use it at literally any speed.
I also bought a bag of 1000 solid silicone earplugs with string tethers, mainly to throw at my son and his musician friends playing hardcore in the basement, but also to keep some with me on the bike all the time and hand them out to anyone who needs them.
If I stick my watch arm out the window while driving, my watch warns me that I'm in a loud environment that could damage my hearing.
I'm not a motorcycle driver, but doesn't it lessen your situational awareness? Genuine question.
In my experience, you situational awareness is better, because all sounds are turned down, you can still hear everything, it's just not as loud. Most of these attenuate the frequencies where the wind noise is more than the rest, which also helps.
The main reason why I say your awareness is better though, is that you have less fatigue when you aren't constantly exposed to loud noise while riding, again in my experience.
The helmet you have also makes a huge difference, just like the bike. On a naked bike you'll have more wind noise, whereas on a touring bike with a large windscreen, it's mainly engine noise.
I second this. It's absolutely nerve wracking to have that wind blasting while riding. With ear plugs there's a feeling of calm combined with the joy of riding that can not be put into words. Damn I need to get another bike. I could use some of that in my life right now.
Thanks for sharing your experience!
They got that all correct, for sure. I already have tinnitus, so extended wind noise aggravates that, and loud sounds tend to get mentally overwhelming for me. Earplugs resolve both of those problems, and are just a necessity.
I will also add that riding a motorcycle is primarily about situational awareness. When you're going any speed above running pace, scenery is speeding past, the road is right there with nothing in between it and you, wind rushing - the lizard brain goes "pay fucking attention!" The same thing in a car, you have a bubble around you which is stationary in relation to your person, and your lizard brain is not triggered to pay attention in quite the same way.
This gets into some funny spaces. Your ears can only handle "so loud" before things start going weird. Muscles start tensing up to attenuate the noise. The shape of your ear canals will funnel sound so your hairs in your inner ear stop ~hearing~ and just report noise.
Turning down the overall volume, lets you hear more, because more of the sound is in your range of acceptable volumes. I'm more aware of what's going on with earplugs in, because I'm able to hear things like the tire noise of a nearby car, or the cooling fans of a semi.
This is the same reason wearing earplugs at concerts makes the music sound better. :-)
I know it's illegal to wear headphones with music while driving. Wonder if earplugs also?
It's different for motorcycles, since your head is in the wind.
As for wearing headphones while driving a car (in the US), it depends on the state, and most states have no prohibition on it.
https://www.vlaw.com/is-it-illegal-to-wear-headphones-while-driving/
Not a lot of information about earplugs, but I did find this:
https://www.thewisedrive.com/driving-with-earplugs/
I can definitely see where wearing earplugs while driving a car could be problematic, because you can roll the windows up, and I would expect that your ability to hear emergency vehicles would be hampered while wearing earplugs in a closed car.
On the other hand, hearing impaired people - including those who are wholly deaf - drive legally all the time, so I'm not entirely sure where earplugs would land.
I'm feeling this one today. I had to ride about 25 miles to an appointment this morning, but as I pulled onto the main road, a 70 mph dual carriageway, I realised that I had forgotten my earplugs. It's been about an hour, and my ears still don't feel right.
Could not agree more. I love the idea of live music but in practice it’s a miserable experience unless you’ve already suffered significant hearing loss.
Maybe someday people will stop putting up with this and I’ll be able to enjoy it but this idea seems a long way away.
I'd sooooo much love to go to concerts more once they are quieter!
This would make it so so much of a better experience
I'm a music producer and there is/was a "Loudness War" and several people say loud won. To clarify: for your tracks to qualify when uploading them to Spotify I believe they have to be a minimum of -10 LUFS. I'm not going to pretend that I know what a LUFS is fully, but I have software to tell me where my LUFS is at. If you don't hit at least -10 LUFS they will fake it for you, with usually terrible results.
So now all producers are mixing to -10 LUFS and higher (-8 or -9), all for the sake of possibly getting radio play in the future, although not all music sounds good when mixed so damn loudly. I know this is tangentially related but
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Protect your hearing.
I did not and today, at the age of 54, I cannot hear above 13khz when I used to be able to hear above 20khz. Part of that is age, but most of it is from not using hearing protection at concerts and other activities where I should have been using it.
Any constant noise above 80db will damage your hearing. 80db is a LOT quieter than you think it is.
I absolutely do wear earplugs when going there. People find it weird, but we'll see who's gonna hear my laughter in a few years.
most of it is from not using hearing protection at concerts and other activities where I should have been using it.
You mean like firing a pistol in an elevator?
I'm taking live sound classes at my community college right now and we talked about this yesterday. The biggest issue with a large venue packed with people is the noise floor is very high. For instance if the crowd is 90db, then you've only got 10-20db of headroom to work with. 90db is already enough to cause hearing damage after 8 hours, and it gets exponentially worse with just a few db more, by 100 you can only safely be in that for 2 hours and that is generally the ideal loudness for that kind of venue. Of course since the engineers probably have hearing loss, they tend to raise it even higher to 110 which is loud enough to still cause damage over time even with regular earbuds unfortunately. So unless you can have a quiet crowd there is nothing you can do about needing ear protection, I recommend hanging by the engineer booth because they tend to be just far enough away to comfortably hear everything around 90db because they generally can't use earbuds while actively mixing.
Went to a local rock concert once. Had to go into the middle of the crowd to fetch a friend and alert him of something that had happened. The music was unbearably loud for me. Noticed that virtually everyone was wearing ear plugs.
Found it absurd. Why not lower the volume instead and have people forego the plugs? Less noise pollution in the local area too. After the concert was over I asked some participants about it. Everyone claimed they liked the loudness or that it was necessary somehow. My impression: they liked to keep up with the appearances of being hardcore, it being for tough folks. But they didn't want the actual hearing damage.
Found it absurd. Why not lower the volume instead and have people forego the plugs?
Some people like to be able to feel the music. I have been at music concerts with deaf people who were enjoying the shit out of it.
Yeah this desire for extremes is what drives people into very absurd situations overall
I volunteer at a non-profit concert venue.
The reason I fell in love with it in the first place was that you could go to a rock concert there, stand right in front of the stage, and talk to the person next to you.
Now I know why: They enforce a hard 100dB limit, and the entire room is covered in sound-dampening foam.
Wow! That's great to know :)
What is the goal of the nonprofit, if I may ask? Just mass entertaining, or something more complex?
Providing a non-commercial space for cultural events to people of limited means.
Also, providing a stage for new artists that aren't already well-established.
A rock concert with 3 bands and a DJ will cost 5-7€ at the door, a beer costs 1,50€. But there's also art exhibits, poetry slams, sharing flea markets (take what you need, give what you can), movie nights and fire shows.
This is only possible because 15 members spend a lot of time maintaining it, and during an evening, up to 20 volunteers work the bar and the door, all without payment.
Honestly, I've never seen a place like this anywhere else, that's why I decided to join and invest a lot of my free time there.
There's an outdoor area, too:
Nice!
Sounds like a nice social space overall :)
I literally take earplugs with me wherever i go. They're in all my vehicles and all my bags.
Foam earplugs are cheap—there's no reason not to.
Going to concerts with earplugs is great.
Even if the music is loud I can always hear the people next to me and the music still sounds good.
WHAT????
(as said by a 40 year old who spent his teens and 20s next to a giant 30 foot tall speaker every week at a concert club. And I mean RIGHT next to it. During crowded concerts I was literally smooshed against it. )
Ouch!
It's the same at movie theaters. I wear earbuds not plugged in to a source just to reduce the sound level at a movie lately.
It's gotten to the point that I just keep ear plugs on me at all times. Concerts, movie theaters, loud family gatherings, whatever. If shit's too crazy I pop them in. I only wish I started this before suffering permanent hearing loss. I can no longer experience silence.
Even after hearing loss ….. it took my family all too long to figure out why my grandmother couldn’t hear despite hearing aids. It turns out a combination of cheap hearing aids and loud relatives were also painfully loud for her so she would turn them off
I wear the acoustic earplugs to concerts now, or at festivals stay far from the speakers. But I'm not sure. Maybe yes if the acoustics allowed for the sound to be more evenly distributed over the crowd.
Those earplugs made for concerts are great, they literally turn down the volume but the music sounds good not muted.
I understand the point and have definitely thought similar BUT, I like being able to feel the low end which can't happen at low volume.
On the alternate I've been to concerts where you just couldn't hear the band playing unless you pressed into everyone at the front. Was a terrible experience and felt like I wasted my money. I'm a big fan of putting in ear plugs, eating an edible and then riding out the vibrations. I agree there must be a good middle ground but I would rather it too loud with ear pro than too quiet.
The counter argument is that you get to decide where you stand, close and damagingly loud, or safe and far away, or anywhere in between. Except for the last one I went to, in a tiny basement (max 15 people) blasting metal inches away from my face
Last concert I brought ear plugs for the first time and still heard the music perfectly fine. They were made for this exact purpose to be fair, but I'm never going without again. There seems to be a history of deafness in my family so might as well protect what's left of my hearing while I can. I felt a little self-conscious, but at least I wasn't the only one, so maybe the idea is becoming less controversial?
But still, I disagree with you (so going to up vote lol). I think I prefer they stay loud but we just encourage people to wear ear plugs. That way, when I sit as far back as I did this last time, it still feels like I'm right there in the middle of it.
I don't fully grasp why would one advocate for loud music AND earplugs. Wouldn't it make sense to just turn volume down? :D
So if I'm sitting in a farther seat I can hear it well but if I'm in a closer seat I can wear ear plugs. But maybe that's my own unpopular opinion lol.
Downvoted for popular opinion...
I totally agree... I went to a club once without earplugs and it was painful. Concerts, shows and clubs I bring earplugs and I don't miss a thing.
It's even worse when you are in a closed space... I went this year to a concert unprepared (in closed space) without my earplugs and ouchhh, I thought I had lost some hearing due to the strong temporary ringing (I still have some doubts whether my hearing is ok). Same with clubs, I dont go often but I might start bringing my earplugs there too
When in doubt, visit ENT physician!
I did have prolonged ear ringing (over a week) after such a concert, went to ENT, and was told I was quite close to actually fucking my hearing up. Got some medical procedures and restored my normal hearing.
And yeah, earplugs are a must.
Quiet concerts will probably be a thing if a big artist fronts it. Could be a cool concept
Where are you, OP?
I'd say in the UK, venues and festivals seem to be pretty good at choosing an appropriate volume these days
Unfortunately I grew up before that was the case and I can pinpoint a few specific gigs at the Astoria in London and some silly nights out in Liverpool that kickstarted the tinnitus I have today