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Comment by klipt | Hacker News Reader

The modern world is full of loud noises that damage our hearing prematurely.

Probably the worst culprits are headphones with the volume too high, and overly amplified concerts.

Everyone should be using musician style earplugs at concerts. They're designed to as best uniformly attenuate the volume to safe levels.

And in my opinion, a good pair always makes the music sound better.

And I never leave with ringing in my ears Because it's no longer just a wall of noise.

Do you have any purchase advice/recommendations?

I personally use squishy foam-type ones at concerts (and when I played in a band) and find they make music sound better by isolating the individual components of the band. They are far from fancy, but I have not had ringing in my ears after a show since I started using them. I wish I had been smarter as a teen.

See: https://www.amazon.com/Macks-Ultra-Soft-Foam-Earplugs/dp/B00...

A lot of concert venues have these: https://www.amazon.com/Howard-Leight-Honeywell-Disposable-LP...

They're comfy and they sound pretty good. Unlike some others, they only reduce by about 12dB, which brings a concert into the safe zone while retaining good clarity. The more reduction you have, the more bass-heavy the resulting curve is, which doesn't sound too good.

I got a pair of Etymotic’s ER20 ear plugs after seeing a few recommendations here on HN. I’ve worn them at concerts, at loud events, in a hotel next to the freeway, and even in the car when the driver had the radio too loud for me. Highly recommend them. I have small ear canals and the foam earplugs never worked, but Etymotic’s “standard” fits me fine, and also works for another friend with normal ears.

https://www.etymotic.com/consumer/hearing-protection/er20.ht...

https://smile.amazon.com/dp/B00G0PPTAK/

I've used two primarily:

Alpine MusicSafe Pro

Etymotic Research ER20

I'd say both are comparable. Though the Alpines come with three filters allowing you to select the level of attenuation.

The Etymotics are bit longer so stick out your ear a bit funny looking, but they're more cone shaped and are easier to put into your ear.

The Alpines come with a little tool that helps inserting it into your ear.

To be honest they're both quite cheap so try both and not break the bank.

If you want to go higher end you can get ones where you can get a custom mold to your ear canal. But I don't have a recommendation there.

> And in my opinion, a good pair always makes the music sound better.

Yes. I can’t understand the thinking that goes into such extreme levels of amplification. It sounds horrible, like my ears are clipping the waveform before my brain gets the audio signal.

Is there a sound engineer out there brave enough to set the levels to a “reasonable” 95dB or what?

Sound engineer here. My goal is always to keep things as quiet as possible. It can be really hard to do so. The louder the mix, the more control you have because you have a larger ratio of PA sound to stage sound up front, and a larger ratio of PA sound to audience/bar noise in the back. The quieter the mix, the more the audience near the front gets overwhelmed with drums and whatever else on stage is naturally loud, and the more the audience in the back gets overwhelmed with the drunk people nearby.

Basically, the necessary mix volume is established by getting the vocals to sit sufficiently above those uncontrollable things, and everything else falls into place.

That said, plenty of engineers do mix too damn loud. They might have a good reason (and would compromise the mix by lowering it), but they might not (and are hurting people's ears unnecessarily).

So the loud music + ear plugs combination might actually be optimal, because the net effect is to reduce the volume of all the nonmusic noise.

Given the circumstances, sure. If you'd rather have conversations than shut them out, not so optimal.

Thanks. So what OscarCunningham said in sibling comment:

Ambient and unwanted noise might be at 90dB. You need at least 20dB of headroom to get a good sound and range, so the PA might be (for an arbitrary attendee) at 110dB.

Then I use my fancy flat-curve earplugs to chop 20dB off of everything, resulting in 90dB music and 70dB (and still drowned-out) unwanted noises.

My numbers might not be right, but general idea, right?

Absolutely. But even the flattest earplugs aren't flat because not all the sound goes through the canal they plug up. Bass conducts through your whole body so you end up with 110dB of bass, 90dB mids/highs, 70dB noise. The unattenuated bass isn't damaging your ears, but it makes a non-flat experience.

This is why I recommended some -12dB earplugs in another comment.

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