Tuesday, June 06, 2023

Hearing protection

Going to a metal concert at my age means taking safety precautions. If I'm voluntarily getting myself blasted with heavy duty sonic waves, I'm going to be protecting my ears. I found this set of Alpine earplugs online, quite reasonably priced, and shipped over within 8-10 days via Lazada.

The plugs themselves are very soft, light silicone. They sit comfortably in the ears like there's nothing there. The magic is in the three sets of filters graded bronze, silver and gold, in increasing order of decibel reduction. The gold filters can be seen inserted into the earplugs, which I opted for, while the remaining two sets can be seen as the pairs of tiny white and silver coloured circles nested within the carry case.

The entire set comes with an extra earplug, a lanyard (stuffed in the mesh pocket), and a vial of cleaning fluid for after.

How did it sound? The music from the performance was perfectly clear, even with the most conservative filters in place, but probably because I was standing right in front where the speakers were. Perhaps further back in the stands a lower grade filter would have sufficed. Oddly, it was the crowd that sounded muffled, and when we engaged in audience participation, it sounded like I was the loudest voice in the venue. 

Awesome concert, no ringing in the ears afterwards. A highly satisfactory purchase.

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