Hearing protection

[Spike56]

Seems most of you are lucky to be able to wear muff type protection. I can but only in the cooler months in Texas. I have a pair of muffs with a radio, but wearing these when it is 10,000 degrees outside is an issue - every uncomfortable. Most of the time, I have to use a pair of simple plugs to avoid a sweating head, plus wearing a straw hat to keep the sun off my ears and neck makes it impossible to use the muff style protector. Ugh !

 

[bdhsfz6]

Seems most of you are lucky to be able to wear muff type protection. I can but only in the cooler months in Texas. I have a pair of muffs with a radio, but wearing these when it is 10,000 degrees outside is an issue - every uncomfortable. Most of the time, I have to use a pair of simple plugs to avoid a sweating head, plus wearing a straw hat to keep the sun off my ears and neck makes it impossible to use the muff style protector. Ugh !

Try a pair of these:

The best noise-canceling earbuds in 2025: Tested and reviewed

Silence the world around you with the best noise-cancelling earbuds recommended by our audio experts

www.tomsguide.com

I use Apple AirPods and they work very well. Definitely better than plain earplugs. I like that they are Bluetooth enabled so I can listen to music.

 

[RalphVa]

Seems most of you are lucky to be able to wear muff type protection. I can but only in the cooler months in Texas. I have a pair of muffs with a radio, but wearing these when it is 10,000 degrees outside is an issue - every uncomfortable. Most of the time, I have to use a pair of simple plugs to avoid a sweating head, plus wearing a straw hat to keep the sun off my ears and neck makes it impossible to use the muff style protector. Ugh !

I have a floppy hat that the muffs will go over. Yeah, the muffing isn't quite as good as with no hat, but almost.

 

[WM75Guy]

I just bought a set of 3M Connect+ Gel headphones. Very comfortable to wear compared to a non-gel set. Bluetooth enabled, one button operation, and 23dB noise cancelling. So far they work great.

 

[rScotty]

I use noise-canceling headphones for ear protection. But sometimes they aren’t enough. I know that some of my friends have hearing aids that help with tinnitus and protect the ears. I was tested by the ear doctor staten island to know whether my hearing is okay. They’ll help to choose the best ear protection for you.

I used noise-cancelling headphones for years. They did work great to cut out the tractor noise, but I started to wonder if they were doing my ears any long term good.
The way noise cancelling works is it "cancels" the noise by adding the same noise back into your ear - but this time out of phase with the incoming noise and so sound-wise they sum to zero.
That does make it so that you don't hear anything - but the energy inside the headphones and against your ear has just doubled..... What does that do? Anything?

And then there is playing music through the headphones to drown out the sound of the tractor. It works too, but in that case there isn't any doubt that the damage to your hearing is just that much higher.

I just had my hearing tested. It's about half gone. Amazingly, that's still good enough for most conversations.

rScotty

 

[gsganzer]

I've had good luck with these custom molded from Sensaphonics. They're pricey, but I bill them to my business as safety gear. What I like about them is you can buy additional filters for different levels of noise reduction. They also work with any hats, sunglasses etc.

Sensaphonics ER Series Earplugs

My local hearing store did the molds and keep it for when I order new ones.

 

[Spike56]

Try a pair of these:

The best noise-canceling earbuds in 2025: Tested and reviewed

Silence the world around you with the best noise-cancelling earbuds recommended by our audio experts

www.tomsguide.com

I use Apple AirPods and they work very well. Definitely better than plain earplugs. I like that they are Bluetooth enabled so I can listen to music.

The noise cancelling earbud are too $$. Probably nice, but...
I have Apple AirPods. Are you saying they can cancel out noise or just drowned out the noise with music ?

 

[bdhsfz6]

I have the Apple AirPods Pro which have true noise cancelling:

AirPods Pro 2

AirPods Pro 2 — Pro-level Active Noise Cancellation, Adaptive Audio, Transparency, Personalized Spatial Audio, and a total hearing health experience.

www.apple.com

Definitely not cheap but they work very well for folks who cannot wear headphones.

 

[Jstpssng]

Seems most of you are lucky to be able to wear muff type protection. I can but only in the cooler months in Texas. I have a pair of muffs with a radio, but wearing these when it is 10,000 degrees outside is an issue - every uncomfortable. Most of the time, I have to use a pair of simple plugs to avoid a sweating head, plus wearing a straw hat to keep the sun off my ears and neck makes it impossible to use the muff style protector. Ugh !

I found a brand/style of ear plugs which I really like, so bought a box of them. I keep several pair in each truck, as well as wearing them on my tractor and around other noisy engines. If I'm running chainsaw I wear them under the ear muffs, otherwise I will still hear the saw running when I go to bed that night.

 

[Spike56]

I have the Apple AirPods Pro which have true noise cancelling:

AirPods Pro 2

AirPods Pro 2 — Pro-level Active Noise Cancellation, Adaptive Audio, Transparency, Personalized Spatial Audio, and a total hearing health experience.

www.apple.com

Definitely not cheap but they work very well for folks who cannot wear headphones.

My version of Airpods do not have noise cancellation feature. I was wondering if these really protected your hearing or not. Found a couple of "maybe someone who knows" articles on the web, one of which is below:

" You may be considering using noise-cancelling headphones or earbuds in your labs or shops to listen to music during work, but please remember that noise-cancelling headphones and earbuds are not hearing protection devices, although they may look similar in some cases. Using noise-cancelling earbuds or headphones in place of hearing protection may cause permanent hearing impairment because these devices do not protect against occupational noise exposure"

So while I would like to listen to music, my main objective is to protect what little hearing I have left. Guess will have to stick with the ear plugs ?