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/cgi-bin/YaBB.pl General Category >> The Cafe >> Ear plugs ineffective?? Natural Hearing Protection /cgi-bin/YaBB.pl?num=1447033676 Message started by cheapnewb24 on 11/08/15 at 17:47:55 |
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Title: Ear plugs ineffective?? Natural Hearing Protection Post by cheapnewb24 on 11/08/15 at 17:47:55 You say what!! :o How could ear plugs possibly be ineffective!? Well, I should explain this novel idea. First off, I am new to motorcycling; I have only had my license for about 5 weeks. Most of my trips are 30 minute commutes one way. I wear a cheap Vega Altura full face helmet. I have no experience with 3/4 or half helmets, so I can't really speak for them. I sometimes wear ear plugs; sometimes not. My commute has some back roads, some highway. I am running the factory muffler on my Savage. I also need to make this disclaimer: This is still a hypothesis based upon my observations so far. I still do not feel fully confident making a hard conclusion on this. These are my hypotheses so far: Hypothesis 1:The wind noise attenuation of ear plugs using a full face helmet is limited due to the effects of internal resonance. Hypothesis 2: Depressurization of the inner ear (AKA "Closing the ears") should be the first priority for the motorcyclist to reduce the effects of excessive noise, including wind noise, and, particularly, the noise produced by internal resonance. This is the case even when wearing ear plugs So, am I a genius, or just a silly little newb ::) Does anyone else use their Eustachian tubes to their advantage? Is this a standard procedure that is simply assumed and not spoken. I haven't done much research on it. Is it somehow harmful? I do know a professor who has permanent hearing damage in one ear when his Eustachian tube blocked due to a sinus infection, or something like that. He was rising up from diving. I think he was diving fairly deep for sea cucumbers when one of the bones in his inner ear actually broke :o However, that's a pretty extreme situation compared to this kind of thing :P The idea I am trying to get across is that it is probably impossible to eliminate all motorcycling noise because some of it resonates inside your head. Try singing with earplugs. It is not all that fun. It is not quiet either. So far, I find that depressurizing the eardrum via "snuffing" if you know what I mean, puts some pressure on the hearing bones and the cochlea, thereby dampening some of the noise, It seems to really take off some of that harsh edge. It is essentially the opposite that yawning thing ya' do to open up your ears during elevation changes. What is more shocking :o is that I have sometimes noticed that closing the ears is even necessary with earplugs, possibly even more so. :-? The idea is that the earplugs makes the ear canals into little resonance chambers, thereby substantially reducing the effectiveness of the earplugs. Earplugs might help some. I haven't really decided yet :-/. Any ideas?? Personal Experience?? FYI: I do care about my hearing; I like music. Wanna keep those high frequencies. Painfully loud noise isn't all that fun anyway >:( Cool fact: When I was a kid, I could actually hear one of those bird repeller things. It was a subtle, mysterious, mildly annoying high pitched ringing in my ears |
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Title: Re: Ear plugs ineffective?? Natural Hearing Protec Post by engineer on 11/08/15 at 18:57:34 OSHA seems to think earplugs help and I hope they have some scientific basis for that belief. I'm not certain about what you mean when you say "closing the ear". Long term blockage of the eustachian tubes can certainly cause hearing problems. I didn't know that people could control any aspect of their eustachian tubes other than equalizing pressure while diving (I used to be a certified diver) or yawning/chewing while flying to release pressure when climbing. Maybe you could explain it a little more. |
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Title: Re: Ear plugs ineffective?? Natural Hearing Protec Post by DesertRat on 11/08/15 at 19:14:42 cheapnewb24, do you scuba dive? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ear_clearing |
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Title: Re: Ear plugs ineffective?? Natural Hearing Protec Post by cheapnewb24 on 11/08/15 at 19:41:36 Nope, I have never tried diving or flying. I have learned how to pressurize/depressurize my middle ear manually. I do it frequently too. I like to practice opening and closing my ears which accompanies my habit of observing my own hearing for signs of fatigue like "numbness" or tinnitus. I simply inhale through my nose with just a little vigor (not violently), kind of a little "snuff," and that will usually work. Then I can yawn to open them up again. I guess its a technique that will have to be discovered personally, maybe. It's kind of interesting that not everyone knows how to do this. Maybe I had a cool little trick and didn't know it ;) When you mention hearing problems, is it simply from the fact that the tubes are blocked, or is there something causing actual damage? A little worrisome if you think about it too hard :-/ Well, at least I'm not deaf yet, and its probably safer than having one's ears fully open to loud noise. Interesting fact: Is it not true that there are muscles inside the ear which actually dampen loud noises, providing a degree of automatic protection? I wonder if these muscles could be strengthened. I just remembered that I recall reading a scientific study on rodents that supported the idea that exposure to moderately loud noise can actually reduce the risk of hearing trauma upon exposure to extreme noise. Now, that's something OSHA probably won't tell you ;). In fact, they may not even know about it :P That's life for ya :P. |
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Title: Re: Ear plugs ineffective?? Natural Hearing Protec Post by stewmills on 11/08/15 at 20:39:39 I think what he's trying to say in normal people terms is something like this: If you are sitting in a closed garage with loud music playing it's loud. If you open the garage door, it's not as loud because the noise is not bouncing off of the door but now leaking out into the neighborhood. So, if the garage door were your ear plug the plug is keeping whatever sound is resonating inside your ear in there to bounce around and beat your ear to death. By opening the ear (removing the ear plug) you are allowing the sound that is resonating inside your ear to escape and not beat your inner ear to death. HOWEVER, by removing the plug and letting some noise out, you are thereby opening the canal to let other noise in. Pick your poison... |
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Title: Re: Ear plugs ineffective?? Natural Hearing Protec Post by cheapnewb24 on 11/08/15 at 21:02:06 Yep, kinda like that. Ear plugs might help, but it is not as cut and dried as saying, "Well, this noise is 110 decibels, and these earplugs are rated at 32 decibels, therefore 110-32= 88. That resonance probably reduces the effective decibel reduction, and it may be possible in some instances that the reduction is cancelled out completely rendering them useless. Not only that, but if you'll notice, ear plugs are rated differently for various frequencies as well, adding further complication. Yeah, pick your poison: one kind of noise or the other. I would say experiment until you find the solution most practial and comfortable to your ears. And figure out that little trick if you can; it may come in handy.;) For me, it has something to do with coordination of breath with jaw muscles and/or possibly muscles that somehow control the tubes themselves. I can only give clues, it is a bit of a personal discovery. At least sometimes, it is very effective. I can say that I use it most of the time I ride. If my ears were completely open, the noise would be notably more problematic. Not sayin' that it is a miracle cure. I bought some ear plugs on a trip recently because I was worried the trip might have been too long to be safe, given that long trips are known to encourage hearing damage. After I put them in, however, it wasn't long before I questioned their effectiveness. That was the day I test drove my bike after unclogging the float valve screen. It needed a good long highway drive to make sure it would not die on me after running the bowl dry. |
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Title: Re: Ear plugs ineffective?? Natural Hearing Protec Post by cheapnewb24 on 11/08/15 at 21:34:18 Adding to the previous post, I would think that having clarity and definition without excessive decibels, especially in the sensitive high frequencies. It is a good idea to minimize useless junk noise caused by resonance or other causes. Like I said, you'll probably have to figure it out by experimentation and feeling. With that being said, bad earplugs could be worse than none, in a way, not to discourage anyone from wearing them. The main thing is that sometimes accepted facts need to be questioned. Sometimes, they are just general rules which have have exceptions and complications. Sometimes, we need to figure these things out instead of simply accepting the status quo and using a generic prescription for life. In this case, we should think twice about simply stuffing in earplugs and blindly assuming that they will work as well as commonly accepted. Things can get complicated. Just scan across some of the scholarly articles on hearing loss, and you'll find that those hair cells seem very complicated on a molecular level. It's not as simple as x db for y minutes = z db loss. It seems to me that the guidelines represent risk more than fact. Just because the risk is high for damage at a certain level of abuse does not necessarily guarantee it. The ears may somehow manage to recover from damage sometimes and not others, and it may be influenced by environmental factors, age, and physical condition. I am being a little lazy on the research, so you don't have to take me for gospel yet ;). Also, I haven't found that scholarly article I mentioned earlier. I did find it interesting, though, when I looked over it. It must have been several months, maybe even a year or two ago. Also 110-32=78, not 88 |
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Title: Re: Ear plugs ineffective?? Natural Hearing Protec Post by KennyG on 11/08/15 at 22:33:01 It sounds like bull feathers to me. |
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Title: Re: Ear plugs ineffective?? Natural Hearing Protec Post by Serowbot on 11/09/15 at 06:44:04 0729220F3E2D3F244C0 wrote:
I lost my ability to hear those, years ago... :-?... |
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Title: Re: Ear plugs ineffective?? Natural Hearing Protec Post by MnSpring on 11/09/15 at 10:30:49 From a firearm shooting stand point. The sound wave, is sudden and very high. But not as frequent as a constant noise, like wind/engine/etc. And, yes, the ’noise’, what ever it is, Dose, use the ‘bones’ in your head/ear, to resonate sound. Like Stew said: “ …If you are sitting in a closed garage with loud music playing it's loud. If you open the garage door, it's not as loud because the noise is not bouncing off of the door but now leaking out …” Ear, ‘plugs’, while shooting, work. A advanced, ear plug, like many people use that shoot a lot. are a lot larger. Instead, of just a, ‘plug’, they are a, plug, which has a much wider surface area, Outside, the ear. Typical, they are of a special, 2 part epoxy, (which will not stick to skin), Which is, mixed, then, pushed into the ear, (which has been cleaned, and very lightly oiled with a ‘Q’ tip, and any kind of natural oil, (cooking oil mostly) First pair, of the, molded ones, which sorta, ’spread’, out, over the top of the plug, were Very much a improvement. Over, just the, ‘plug’. This was when I was doing a lot of, ’Trap’ shooting. The sound of a 12g, with a light load, was not to bad. But, when their was 4 other people on your squad. And 5 to 25 Other squads shooting. And shooting in big matches, which was 400 rounds a day, for one shooter. (If 20 squads, could be 50,000 rounds a day, your ears were subject to) Hearing loss is Cumulative, we did not know this yesterday, but know it today. So you loose, just a, ‘little bit’ on one shot. It’s gone, forever. And each shot added up. (So today, I have the pleasure of not knowing the difference in a, 5,000.00 high Grade Stereo system, vs, a $50.00 one). First, ‘molded’ ear plugs cost, 25-35.00, 30 years ago. Today, at a gun shop, or on line, you can buy the (un mixed) product yourself, for about 12-16.00 for both ears. In all sorts of colors. I have bought, Two, packages, and use 2 ears worth in one ear. (Two Colors, the Right ear is always Red) Just more, ’spreading’ out of material. And when shooting the heavy magnum handguns, Those ear, ‘plugs’, AND ear, muffs. (As most do when shooting something very loud) Chain saws/Lawnmowers/Splitter/etc. Muffs. The MC, the, ‘molded’ ear plugs, much better than the, ’tube’ like plugs. Interesting, the, ‘headphones’ from i-phones, mp3 players, etc, are Much to loud, and, ARE, resulting in hearing loss. And I just, Cringe, when I see, someone sit a lawnmower, with the, ‘radio’, earmuffs. Let’s see, take down the lawnmower noise, but then turn UP, the radio, so you can hear it over the residual Lawnmower noise? Their are also the, ’sonic, plugs. Which have a hole in them, to allow you to hear ’normal’, then when the great, ’sound’, (airwave), hits them, a little diagram in them closes. But some of that, ’sound’ will still go (bounce around) in the bones. Their are also, electronic, Muffs, some, where you can hear a mouse fart, a 100 yards away, (300-600.00) Some are 35.00 +/-, which will have a constant, ‘buzzing’ sound. Also, ‘Hunters Ears’, type, plugs or molded, which quality is dependent on price. Which all the electronic ones, will take out the, ’sudden’, loud sound. But allow normal hearing. However if you use them for a, ‘constant’ loud sound, you will be VERY, frequently, replacing batteries. Try, the, molded ear plugs, which, plugs the ear canal, and also spreads out over the surface of the ear. Less sound, vibrations, will hit the bone/s. They may work. |
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Title: Re: Ear plugs ineffective?? Natural Hearing Protec Post by Art Webb on 11/09/15 at 10:43:30 I can tell you for sure, having worked in a factory environment, that ear plugs do absolutely work, it took approx 1 second to determine this my first day of work I can also tell you they work mostly on really loud noises I until last month was also wearing a Vega Altura helmet (dropped it and the shield broke at the mount tabs, no replacement shields available) and I can testify that a Savage with a stock muffler through that helmet doesn't qualify as really loud, even at 70 I don't use plugs, though I likely should, because the bike just isn't loud enough for me to find the noise attenuation worth the trouble there is NO WAY I would go inside a factory without them, at least not for more than a few seconds and yes, I know how to pop my ears and do so when they get that 'overpressure' feeling |
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Title: Re: Ear plugs ineffective?? Natural Hearing Protec Post by Paladin. on 11/09/15 at 18:46:38 4355425F47525F44300 wrote:
I lost my ability to hear those, years ago... :-?...[/quote] http://www.dslretorts.com/Paladin/images/ear_freq_sweep.jpg I used to my left ear for telephones, using headsets, at work, many years.... |
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Title: Re: Ear plugs ineffective?? Natural Hearing Protec Post by old_rider on 11/09/15 at 21:44:43 You, should purchase different pairs to see what you are looking to do.... Remove all sound, Mostly all sound, Some sound, Only certain frequencies of sound. There should be modified plugs out there that will do what ever you want. Plus, you need to make sure none of those earplugs have extensions that extend past your forward ear opening. If the "finger grabber thingie" sticks out past your opening it will catch the wind and create more sound than it muffles. Ear plugs with strings attached can amplify the sound of the string rubbing across a coarse shirt or jacket and even amplify the air passing over the string. There are ear nose and throat clinics that will make you pair that will fit your ear canal exactly. Me... well I usually use my phone ear buds... and turn on some music (low volume) and sing along ;D :D ::) |
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Title: Re: Ear plugs ineffective?? Natural Hearing Protec Post by cheapnewb24 on 12/29/15 at 20:35:19 Here are some articles worth reading: http://www.hearforever.org/tools-to-educate/what-trainers-need-to-know-about-fitting-earplugs http://www.hearforever.org/blogs/01/24/2011/qa-why-arent-there-any-nrr-40-earplugs I have found that the attenuation of earplugs during riding can vary widely. One time I was riding the Interstate, and I decided to try putting in my earplugs at a rest stop, only to discover that I already had them in >:( :o ;D. Those were some of those pastel green foam plugs I got at a local CVS. They had a 32 or 33 Db rating, I remember they also made my ears sore, so it was not like I just barely stuck them in. :P I think the ones I use now are pink and yellow foam plugs with the little wings-- Similar rating with them. However, they are a bit softer. I think they work better, and don't make my ears sore. Perhaps 33 Db is too much attenuation, for when they are inserted really well, it gets too quiet. It can get disconcerting. On the other hand, what others have said is true: It does get more relaxing and less stressful with some quiet. I just like to be able to hear the engine and other things. I am considering maybe getting some 25 Db plugs for moderate trips, and keeping the stronger plugs for long trips. Today, they worked pretty well, though... not too quiet. The website's graph of attenuation for improperly fitted plugs makes some sense. The low frequencies can get pretty bad. Perhaps this effect is amplified in the motorcyclist's case? It's not like you have to on purposely put them in lightly. I can jam them in there--even pinch/roll them up, and they still probably don't get max attenuation. I'm telling you guys! It's not hard to mess up this earplug thing, so don't assume their working just because you jammed them in your ears. I bet I have probably not been using the right technique, and some brands might not be as reliable. I still like to use that little trick, though. It helps a little. ;) |
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Title: Re: Ear plugs ineffective?? Natural Hearing Protec Post by cheapnewb24 on 12/29/15 at 20:41:45 Notice that one of those articles mentions bone-conduction hearing. Do you think that motorcyclists have more or less trouble with this type of noise? Here is another article about ear canal resonance. http://www.resonancehearingclinic.com/resonance-of-the-human-ear-canal/ |
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Title: Re: Ear plugs ineffective?? Natural Hearing Protec Post by cheapnewb24 on 12/29/15 at 20:59:40 " Above that, you will still hear sound, but it's coming through your skeletal system, and you would truly need body armor to stop that." http://www.hearforever.org/blogs/01/24/2011/qa-why-arent-there-any-nrr-40-ear... Hmmm... That sounds kinda like a motorcycle helmet :-?. Why do we hear so much roaring anyway? I guess it would be far worse without a helmet? Do other noise sources (i.e. industrial noise) match motorcycling for that persistent roar that's hard to quench? |
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Title: Re: Ear plugs ineffective?? Natural Hearing Protec Post by Art Webb on 12/30/15 at 07:18:26 some folks calin a FF helmet is louder, on their bike, than a half helmet Maybe try a half helmet and see? I don't try to tell folks what will work for them, I do what works for me I haven't work anything but a FF for years now, because I'm happy with it, it seems to me to be quieter with less roar, YMMV |
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Title: Re: Ear plugs ineffective?? Natural Hearing Protec Post by cheapnewb24 on 12/30/15 at 16:48:10 Any other thoughts? |
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