social.noyu.me

some knowledgeable friends are explaining we're probably wrong about IEMs necessarily being suitable as protection, which is fascinating, and i think we start to understand why that might be. though we do suspect they might still be better than the foam garbage we used last ^^;

the two different kinds of disposable foam earplugs we got given at two recent concerts we went to were awful and didn't fit our ears, our Shure SE215's would definitely have done more to protect our ears than those because they make a good seal, i can alas tell you that much

@hikari no. you do not know what their actual attenutation propeties are, and they are certainly not offering you flat attenuation.

@hikari This is safety gear and needs to be tested for purpose. Your IEMs are not stage IEMs and hence are not tested for their ability to protect the ears from the effects of high SPLs

If you want something inexpensive & generic I recommend Etymotic Research/Elacin ER-20s (Sometimes sold as “Ety-Plugs”). The best option in terms of fit and isolation of course is custom molds; I have ACS earplugs with their 17dB flat filters (made by their German distributor)

@erincandescent ah, i see, that's all quite reasonable, however we will point out that unfortunately we strongly suspect that our IEMs are still better protection for our ears than both brands of cheap disposable foam earplugs we have been given before, because the former actually make a seal

@erincandescent this is not us trying to push back against your advice, we'll try to seek out appropriate high-quality earplugs, we merely note that for all you say about safety, the quality floor is tragically low here

@hikari no, absolutely not

you have no guarantees about the attenuation levels and I'm not sure it would even sound good

@hikari IEMs have a seal but they aren't designed for blocking sound or protecting your ears, and will also block out the wrong sounds that you would want to hear in a concert.

Concert earplugs bring out the clarity of vocals and instruments while dispersing the harmful frequencies using tricks with the shape of the plug.

Something like these with a double or triple tip setup is going to be the best. I have Loops too they're alright