Preventing hearing loss

[Mark Purney]

I'm curious what people do, if anything, to protect hearing while tuning 
pianos. I'm sure your ears probably get used to the sound over time, but 
the sound levels from my first tuning practice made me uncomfortable, 
gave me a slight headache, and I noticed that certain notes were almost 
painful to my ears.

I immediately thought about using closed-back headphones with some sort 
of microphone setup. This would block most direct sound, while providing 
an accurate signal with adjustable volume. Depending on the mic pattern, 
it might even help to reduce surrounding noises. With some EQ, it might 
even be possible to enhance the partials while attenuating the 
fundamental when listening for beats. The problem is that it's no fun to 
wear large headphones all day.

I did some searching and found out about these special "Musician's" ear 
plugs that attenuate all frequencies evenly.  This seems to be an ideal 
solution, although expensive. They aren't cheap, and require custom 
fitting by an audiologist:
http://www.hearnet.com/images_site/erme_brochure.pdf