Hearing Protectors

[Jory A. Olson]

Mike,

I'm an electrical engineer working on audio systems.  Often, when testing a new design, I have to turn the volume all the way up and crank the bass, while I make measurements.  Since I don't want to go deaf, I wear hearing protection.  Unfortunately, as others have stated, 30 dB is about as good as ordinary hearing protection gets, because much of the sound is transmitted via conduction through your bones.  

However, about a year ago I bought a pair of noise cancellation headphones.  This is an electronic device worn on the belt or in a shirt pocket with a small set of "Walkman" like headphones.  In the outer part of each ear-piece is a small microphone.  The microphone samples the sound at each ear.  The electronics then create an equal-but-opposite signal to cancel out the noise.  It is quite dramatic.  While wearing these headphones I can hear the sound of my heart and a rushing sound that I'm told is the sound of the blood rushing through my veins.

I've taken to wearing these on long airplane flights and it seems to cut down the fatigue from the jet noise.  It works really well!

I got mine as a "sample", but I've seen them for sale in airline magazines, electronic stores like Fry's, and at Sharper Image.  I bet many of the catalog stores have them.  Maybe even Crutchfield has them.  Sometime in the past two years Consumer's Report rated noise cancellation headsets.  I think they run $40 -$200.

I think you'll be amazed.

Jory