professional/ DJ earplugs

i've been looking too recently...worried about tinnitus

i found this

http://www.sensorcom.com/earplugs.asp

which looks alright.

search "attenuating ear plugs" and you get a few sites.

normal cheapo ones work ok as well, usually I carry these around with me. I generally think I can 'hear' when the music is too loud and then draw for these, or if need be some tissue paper. Or just get further away from the sound. One piece of advice: don't let people yell in your ear in clubs to speak over the music, that's the worst since your ears are most sensitive in the human voice frequency range.

I think basically just being a bit careful will do a lot, I've had a few nasty ear ringing mornings and heard some horror stories and now I'm pretty careful about keeping away from loud mid and treble frequencies, as far as I know bass does very little hearing damage, lucky for me that's my favorite thing to hear loud.

Yeah, I got a pair of the cheaper etymotic ones off ebay... something like this

Sadly, I've not actually been to anything hugely loud since I got them, but from trying them out, they seem to be good at reducing volume levels without making things muffled (unlike normal cheap earplugs which attenuate high frequencies much more than low ones)

I paid $150 for a set of custom molded earplugs after having a really bad ear ache after WMC '04 and still think it's the best $150 I've ever spent on music. If you're serious about going to clubs for any extended period of time, I highly suggest getting top-notch earplugs.

Cheapy plugs you can get in a music shop are better than nothing (I went that route for the first 10 years of my DJ career), but after getting the professional setup I'd never go back.

I dlike to reiterate how nice the molded earplugs are. Got mine a few years ago for about $120. You go in once, and they inject some sort of liquid foam, that hardens. they take it out, use the mold for earplugs.

I was running sound in a club at the time, and the sound booth was right in front of one of the speaker stacks, and after a night of bands or djs, i had a ringing in my ear for at least 24 hours.

The earplugs are AMAZING. With cheap ones, everything is basically muted, or muffled. With these, it seems everything was brought to the same level. I could still mix the band, and would occasionally pull one out to see how it sounds in "real life". the amazing thing is, while i could hear the band crystal clear, i could hear people's conversations from across the room as well. The first time it blew my mind. It like too much input in a club, my brain wasnt used to all those different sounds.

If you spend a lot of time in clubs or at concerts, i would recommend splurging. You will be suprised.