Klarinet Archive - Posting 000238.txt from 2007/09

From: "Brian Catchlove and Ann Holtzapffel" <wordpecker@-----.au>
Subj: Re: [kl] Hearing Protection?
Date: Thu, 27 Sep 2007 03:07:24 -0400

Hi Jason,
I also have the Etymotic (phonak) earplugs for use in orchestra. The
ear-buzz is a bit of a problem and there is no way of completely removing
it. My understanding of this is that there is an occlusion(sp?) effect which
is caused by the gap between the eardrum and the end of the plug when it's
inserted in the ear. It can be minimised a little by making sure that the
moulds are set as deep as possible to reduce the space between the eardrum
and the plug. You may need to talk to your audiologist about this.
I personally have found the foam plugs to be much worse for the buzz and the
attenuation is also not even across the range. I experimented (briefly) last
year in orchestra with noise cancelling earphones that cancel out
background noise by phase shifting the ambient noise. These were very
interesting and the buzz was less noticeable because they sit outside the
ear canal. The sound was quite clear but they couldn't quite handle the
extreme noises from the brass without distorting. This will probably be the
future for hearing protection but more R&D is needed.
Brian Catchlove
----- Original Message -----
From: "Jason Tiller" <jason@-----.org>
To: <klarinet@-----.org>
Sent: Thursday, September 27, 2007 9:11 AM
Subject: Re: [kl] Hearing Protection?

> Hi, Fred, :)
>
> Thanks for your quick and thoughtful response!
>
> On Wed, 26 Sep 2007, Fred Jacobowitz wrote:
>
>> I suspect that if you use a less invasive and dense kind of ear
>> protection, you might just solve your problem. Is it possible that
>> the fancy ear plugs you've got fit so perfectly that they don't let
>> enough air out of the ear?
>
> Indeed, the "shells" that hold the Etymotic reducers are custom-molded
> to my ear canal. That's one reason that they're so great!! Well,
> that and the frequency response of the filters.
>
> I believe that the filter (reducer) permits airflow; if there were no
> airflow at all, wouldn't my ear canal become very resonant? I had
> understood that this is one of the reason that > 33dB earplugs have no
> benefit.
>
>> (when you pay high notes, it puts alot of pressure on the ear - and
>> the entire nasal cavity - and literally forces some air out) Try
>> using those foam ear plugs you can get anany drug store. They really
>> don't do much - just take the edge off the sound. However, they are
>> very porous so they don't impede air in or out of the ear. And they
>> are dirt cheap too, so you've got nothing to lose!
>
> I'll give 'em a whirl. When I was first encountering tinnitus, I went
> through *many* different kinds of earplugs. I imagine that I'll want
> a very mild reduction. Another advantage of the Etymotic filters is
> that they apply a uniform reduction across the frequency range so as
> to not de-emphasize some frequencies over others. It'll be
> interesting to see if this is an issue for me while I play clarinet.
>
> I'll try it out tonight and report back tomorrow.
>
> Thanks again!
>
> ---Jason
> Sonos Handbell Ensemble
> http://www.sonos.org/
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>
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