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Well, I finally broke down and bough a set of ear muffs, WOW is it quiet inside those things!

I was at Lowes the other day getting a piece of MDF for a new mold I am making, I grabbed a box of face masks and seen the ear muff sitting right there next to them, so I grabbed a pair.

One of the best side effects of the ear muffs is that it is so quite that I can concentrate 10 times better. I actually caught my self day dreaming a little (Not a good thing while running a router)

Any ways, if you have been putting it off, get your self a pair of ear muffs, mine were $12.00. Your ear drums will thank you

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Lance@LuthiersForum.com

or at the very least get the little foam things that you squish and then put in
your ear..they expand and wow it's quiet..actually more quiet in DB
effectiveness (if done right) than ear muffs, you can only reuse them so
many times (depending on how clear your ears are) but they are only like $1
a pop...

Eye protection, and ear protection are a must for me now and I've been bad
about not doing it in the past. It makes you feel better, and work better
imo.

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John Mayes
http://www.mayesluthier.com

i keep a pair at each noisy machine, i.e., table saw, router table, planer, jointer, and on the shelf where my freehand routers live. when i turn off the machine i place the muffs on it so it can't be used till they are removed. usually i remember that they are to go over my ears. pity i didn't think of it till most of the grey matter had escaped....

I can speak volumes about hearing protection.  When in college, I was on the rifle team, shooting on indoor range with no hearing protection.  I have many frequencies that I don't hear at all in my left ear, the most unprotected one.  Unfortunately, I think my wife speaks in most of the frequencies I have totally lost.  Orr is that just normal hearing for a guy?

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Waddy

Photobucket Build Album Library

Sound Clips of most of my guitars

I keep a few pair around my shop now so they're always within reach, same with the safety glasses. I even use them when mowing the lawn, I put them over my earbud headphones so I can listen to my iPod at a pleasingly quiet volume while I mow.

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Jonathan Kendall, Siloam Springs AR

Yeah, I always use something for hearing protection. I do a lot of shooting and one of the things the old timers always stressed was ear protection. It is a good thing for musicians to protect their ears. I generally use shooters ear plugs or ear muffs.

you can buy muffs that have am/fm receivers and a jack for your portable sound system, at around $60-70. or you can go the whole hog and spring for the bose at $xxx.xx. had a friend who used the bose aviation headsets. sure beat my david clarks...

Years ago, while doing amateur shooting tournaments, I purchased a set of "custom made" earplugs...you know, those kind that are perfectly molded to your ear, and you have to go to the audiologist to get that rubbery stuff squirted into your ear. Anyway, they're just awesome, completely comfortable, block out the loud sounds. I wear mine all the time, for one reason or the other. They're so comfortable, you can honestly forget you have them in. They don't interfere with eyeglasses, hats, motorcycle helmets, etc. From more than about 4 feet away, the flesh colored ones cannot be seen - and they fit in your pocket comfortably.

Today I believe you can get a pair of those for somewhere in the $60 dollar range. Something to consider.   

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Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines.

Yeah, unfortunately a lesson learned too late, I got rock&roll tinnitus and a pretty much constant ringing in the ears, especially when I'm tired. So wear those muffs and turn down that dang guitar!!! Oh, and don't stand to close to the drummer!!

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Tickle your guitar daily, and it'll tickle you back.

Peltor is good. The black and red ones.

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Howard Klepper
http://www.klepperguitars.com

When all else fails, clean the shop.

Thanks for the reminder, Lance.

I also tend to listen to what Cumpiano has to say in this regard.

Freaked out the 2 year old next door with my getup.

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now known around here as Pat Foster
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http://www.patfosterguitars.com

John, I pretty much suffer from the same thing, 20 years in a rock band, the drummer ALWAYS on my right. It had all but gone away until I started playing in our church choir two years ago, drummer on the right again

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Lance@LuthiersForum.com

Lance, you mean you haven't owned a pair of muffs until now?! Oh, the pain!

I am one of those people who has to turn down the radio if I am going to back the car; I really can't concentrate if there is a distracting noise anywhere. I could not operate a noisy machine if I did not wear hearing protection, much less enjoy it. I usually don't even listen to music when I work, I like it


quiet.



Luckily my hearing is still good even though I have played rock 'n roll for most of my life, but then I was never into the Marshall stack thing, more AC30 and Deluxe reverbs.

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Rian Gitar og Mandolin

I wear mine pretty much all day every day. I would advise against noise-cancelling headphones such as the Bose for our kind of work. They give the perception of quiet, not actual protection.

Lance, wait til the first time you forget to take them off and go "number 1" while wearing them. You'll think a freight train was between your ears.   

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John Watkins
CNC Guitar Parts

I like the little foam dealies. They are comfortable if you have glasses and/or a dust mask on. I almost always have a pair in my pocket. They can be washed. I just throw them in with the laundry (but not the drier). Good for lawnmowing too.

For really noisy times like long peroids of chainsawing, foam plugs AND earmuffs combined are even better.
Ever since a Who concert in Berkeley in the '70s, after which I knew that I had suffered some hearing damage, I have been carefull.
I hate to think of the results, a few decades from now, of all those kids with ipods in their ears every day?
Even after years of being careful, I just saw a doctor about tinitis the other day and am trying some things to see if it can be helped or not.

I gave up a lot on my hearing in the Navy many years back, and have learned a bunch about it. A couple of interesting tidbits:

If you think you don't need to use hearing protectors, think again. The damage is realated to the level and the duration of exposure. My routers put out 103 dBA at three feet away: 'safe' exposure time, 15 minutes. A level of 85 dBA over a long period is damaging, and your shop vac puts out that much noise. Most machines are somewhere between those two.

The last set of earmuffs I got came with an attenuation chart. It almost exactly matches my hearing loss: if you have 'normal' hearing, and put those on, that's what my world sounds like with my hearing aids out.

[QUOTE=Howard Klepper] Peltor is good. The black and red ones.[/QUOTE]


+1 for Peltor! I bought a pair for the Indy500 last year and continue to use them in the shop. They're very quiet, and they even have an integrated radio and ipod jack.

Yeah, what Alan said above. It's all true, even if your parents didn't warn you about it! In addition to sound level and duration of exposure, there's repetition. Think hammers, nail guns and anything else that makes brief, loud noise. More than a couple of those in a row, and your hearing is being damaged. It's all cumulative, too. On any given day, a luthier might be exposed to a shop vac several times or the continuous din of central dust collecion, routers, belt sanders, power jointers, hammer on chisel, the whine of power drills, the growl of compressors, the hiss of air hoses, and probably other things that I'm forgetting right now. It's all pounding on those little "hairs" in your middle ear, and once those things are knocked over they don't stand up again.

Because it causes a physical movement of our ear drums, it's been said that sound is the only sense that actually touches us. Touch=good; Slap=bad!

I use reusable "acoustic" plugs--the kind that look like a few jellyfish stacked up--that allow muffled conversation, but attenuate both continuous and explosive sounds. They work really well.

I've worked around jet engines for the last 10 years and can say it's been worth it to wear foam plugs and muffs - my hearing is normal. It's hard to look cool with a pair of muffs on but no one is going to notice the plugs when you're imitating "insert favorite rock god here".

Also - don't forget your eye protection, a good respirator and gloves when needed. You may look like Darth Vader (or Pat's picture above ) working in your shop but it's better than losing an eye, finger, ect. or losing your sense of taste and smell. (wood dust can do weird things - Yeesh!)

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John Lewis
Wannabe builder owned by 2 crazy dachshunds

Hua? what did you say?


Oh! I use the little foam plugs cause I get them fee from work. Also they are good to plug tuner hols with when spraying finish

Thanks guys for reminding me to go get a new set of muffs. I'm pretty lucky that I never really did like real loud music to start with and have only a small effect from over 15years of racing motorcycles.

Rob,

When I can hear someone else's music (ipod etc.) I take the time to approach them and attempt to explain how the ear works and the damage they could be doing to their ears. Although, I know most will just ignore me some of them do listen and remark they did not understand how the ear works or the long term damage the sound can create. Recently I was at an Emergency room with a Nephew and I could hear music from a headset that was across the room (over 15 feet). Did my speech while the young man looked board but at the end he said he didn’t know those facts. All the while his Grandmother was smiling and then thanked me when I was done.

In essence I ask if they know what a whip is. Then I explain how a whip makes its sound when snapped. I continue by describing the cochlea as a coiled whip with irreplaceable hairs that receive all the different frequencies that we hear. Going back to the whip example provides a relationship of incoming sound and movement of the whip in our ear. If the sound is too great it creates a similar snapping on the cochlea that breaks some of the permanent hairs off. I make sure they understand that the hairs are permanently lost and can no longer register that frequency. If the pattern continues you lose more and more of your permanent hearing and you always find out a bit too late to effectively help.

Sorry to be boring but some of the kids are receptive to listening to what adults say and most have never heard it explained in this manner. The whip example is something they can relate to a bit more than just being told to turn down the music.

Philip

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aka konacat

If you think my playing is bad you should hear me sing!
Practice breeds confidence and confidence breeds competence. Unfortunately, I'm stuck in practice.

Lance, if you find your $12 ear muffs are just uncomfortable or cumbersome enough that you tend to not always put them on when you should, I would urge you to spend as much money and time as necessary to find something that works so well for you that you almost look forward to putting them on. How often do we spend considerable sums of time and money shopping for and buying a tool or machine that we don't REALLY need (T.A.S.)? How much is a really good plane or chisel or tablesaw worth to you? Now, ask yourself, how much is your hearing worth to you?

I shudder to think of how careless people are with something so precious as their hearing - especially people for whom music (which, by the way, requires hearing, Beethoven notwithstanding) is so important! I don't mean that in a judgemental or scolding way... it's just sad and kinda bizarre when you think about it. If you don't protect your hearing, you won't even know what your guitars sound like!

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Todd Rose
Ithaca, NY

https://www.dreamingrosesecobnb.com/todds-art-music

https://www.facebook.com/ToddRoseGuitars/

I tend to 'just' use muffs, although I prefer to use a combo of both if it's going to be a lot of noise for a long time; I'm quite seriously considering shelling out on a set of professional fitted buds to also use at gigs.

As for headphones on iPods, it very much depends on the headphone design; I've got semi-open sennheisers that you can hear even when the volume's at a very reasonable (low) level. Poor design. If I can hear someone's in-ear bud music, I worry. My favourites are Shure in-ear buds, because the quality is fantastic, they block out outside noise, meaning I can enjoy my music at safe (low) volumes (say a third or less of maximum iPod volume) and still heal the finer details. Totally unsafe for cycling and the like, though.