Home Musical Biography Basses HearSafe Pictures Impressum
After having played clarinet in Marching and BigBands for nearly 20 years and as there wasn't any good hearing protection available in the mid 1980s, I too suffer from tinnitus, though only in a minor way as I do only hear the high tone if it is nearly totally quiet.
I tried some common protection for workers (remember those yellow foam things?) but they were no good while playing clarinet because they blocked nearly all the sound from outside and I could more feal than hear myself while playing clarinet because the sound was being transferred by the bone structure nearly exclusively.
And anyone who has played in a BigBand knows how loud 10 trumpets and flugelhorns, 7 trombones, 6 saxophones and a bunch of other winds and brasses as well as the rhythm section can be.
Those yellow foam plugs were better while I played bass in a rock band, purely because they filtered high frequencies better than low ones.
I have used a sound optimized hearing protection sold by HearSafe since the mid 1990s which filters relatively linear by about 20dB and cost only about 25 Euros (about 25 US-Dollars). I still couldn't play clarinet, the effect being similar to the plugs described above but they were quite good while playing bass and visiting concerts.
Some weeks ago I finally had myself built some custom made ear plugs, the "Elacin ER15 HS-Dynamic-Stöpsel", by Hearsafe. Those aren't too cheap at 165 Euros (about 165 US-Dollars) but after removing the filters which are available with 9 or 25 dB, too, allow also the use of an in ear monitoring system.
Those filters are very linear and I can now even play clarinet or saxophone with the sound being how it should be. The mechanical noises of the instrument are bit louder but I got used to that quite fast.
I have been laughed at for a long time every time I put in my hearing protection during rehearsals or concerts, it got less after some musicians got hearing falls (right word? This is a direct translation.).
Everyone can get a hearing fall!
A drummer I played with has not been 20 years old as he got his first one after having been to a concert. But he played without protection even years after that!
A sax player got one with about 40, without having played or listened to loud music a few days before.
Hearing loss is an accumulative process; every concert, every rehearsal without protection and even driving fast with open windows will damage your ears!
Why should musicians do something to themselves willingly and voluntarily that is forbidden in work environments by law???
Here are some links to the problem, some of them are in German only: