Electronic Hearing Protection

[OneTon]

Has anyone had any experience using electronic ear plugs?

[SamBTbrn]

There have been some really great developments with electronic hearing protection over the last few years thanks in part to Dr Ian O'Brien the principe horn of the Queensland Symphony Orchestra in Australia. He has a PhD in audiology and his research was into hearing loss and protection for orchestral musicians. The study ended with the whole QSO using electronically assisted, custom hearing protection which he helped to design in collaboration with other audiologists. My teacher at the time Tom Coyle (Basstrombone of the QSO) used them up until he left the orchestra a few years ago.

Tom said that he had never used anything like them and that the inner mouth sounds and flatness in pitch you get from normal custom ear protection was almost completely gone and that it sounded like he was not wearing protection at all.

They use the Etymotic MP 9-15 or the Etymotoc music Pro and insert them into the custom molded inner ear housing.

Doing a little research online shows that you can buy these electronic earplugs with the standard pinecone attachments as well, but I can't speak to how these ones without the custom mold would compare.

Hope that some of this helped.

[OneTon]

Thank you for your insight.