I have mild tinnitus in one ear, from what I suspect was a friend screaming into my ear that she was going to the bathroom at a noisy club.
I'm relatively lucky, my hearing is still better than most, but it does suck.
I've decided I will never go to another club, and in bars I wear ear plugs. I have more to lose, since any additional damage will likely make my tinnitus more severe.
Seriously though, hearing is one of those things you don't think about until it's too late. Protect your ears.
I get to visit clubs/shows every few months and I always use a pair of musician earplugs, (Etymotic, standard - not custom fitted). It gives a nice and even attenuation, which after few minutes you don't even notice (other than perhaps slightly elevating very low frequencies relative to the rest).
Your mind is very quick to normalize the volume level anyway, no matter if you're with or without protection. Why suffer permanent damage then?
It is so refreshing to come out of a club early in the morning, pull the earplugs out, have the rush of cold air enter your eardrums and there be no ringing.
On the plus side, I find it way easier to understand people talking to me in the club when I have them in.
They probably dull the high frequencies a bit, which can be annoying if you have hearing loss already. And of course earplug don't really block deep bass.
This exactly. Wear earplugs to shows. The levels are generally WAY TOO LOUD to begin with, and in my experience I actually hear/enjoy shows better with halfway decent earplugs.
I can also leave shows, take them out, and hear normally immediately after. No more laying in bed that night being annoyed by minor hearing damage.
You don't even have to be self conscious about it, they're barely visible when they're in.
> The levels are generally WAY TOO LOUD to begin with, and in my experience I actually hear/enjoy shows better with halfway decent earplugs.
Most venues I don't find it to be an issue, but one I was at recently was absurdly loud. I was sat at a 90 degree to the stage, and in one ear I could hear the sound crashing off the back wall to the point vocals were difficult to make out because it just sounded so muffled. Blocking that one ear instantly made it a much better experience.
Those are the kind I use. They try to be flat but there's really nothing you can do to stop concert level bass from getting through, so they end up being a bit boomy. I've found that I can move them in or out of the ear to adjust the dampening. If they are in too far I tend to not like the way it sounds. I like it at the most minimal dampening I can get. It sounds good and it still keeps me from getting concert-ear.
Also I've noticed that I can hear the music much better with them in (when it's too loud I have a hard time distinguishing pitches—singers often sound like the Chipmunks) and some groups don't fare well when you turn down the volume a bit (they use volume to mask lack of ability).
I use the happyears: http://www.happyears.co/
I recommend them, they're cheap, easy to clean and quite comfortable.
Sound quality is always harder to tell (and subjective, it's hard to own hardware to measure it), however they're fine if you ask me. I own pairs of ER-20 XS and pluggerz music, and the happyears are my favorite (pluggerz is quite good as well, happyears are slightly more difficult to fit in the right place. ER-20XS are just uncomfortable in my ears).
I use the Alpine [1], and I use them to protect my ears from the screaming of my toddler. They cost 13 EUR, custom-made cost around 150 EUR. Custom-made can be worth it if you use them a lot, and if your ears are non-standard might be downright mandatory.
But I've been using them too late because recently I have tinnitus in the evening before I go to sleep (I do wear the plug at night as well). Am in mid 30s.
One of the fun parts about the club experience is feeling the sound with your entire body, and you don't get that without the sound being far louder than is safe for your ears without protection.
No, not at all. You only get to feel the low frequencies anyway, which is why infrasonic speakers are nowadays a standard for electronic music venues. You then sync those with audible output and people think they "feel" the music.
What they feel are inaudible sound waves at a frequency that makes some tissue/bones(?) resonate. But this is as much "feeling" the music as is being punched in the face in sync with the base rhythm ;)
The volume required to cause damage goes up as the frequency goes down. Bass has to be ridiculously loud to cause damage. A club which turned up the bass to create a good "feel", but turned down the treble, would save a lot of wear and tear on people's hearing.
Inaudible sounds are precisely those that don't resonate with your hair cells at any frequency, so if you only feel the sound but don't hear it there's no way it can damage your hearing.
Any competent sound engineer is wearing ear protection, so you're usually hearing a better mix with ear plugs in. Your plugs colour the sound slightly, but the mix engineer is subconsciously compensating for the colouration of his own plugs.
If the sound engineer isn't wearing ear plugs, the same logic probably applies. Noise-induced hearing loss has roughly the same effects on your hearing as earplugs, acting like a shallow lowpass filter.
If the sound engineer tunes for the coloured sound, and the sound that he is hearing is coloured the same regardless of whether he is wearing ear plugs, does it not then follow that the sound that you are hearing is coloured the same regardless of whether you are wearing ear plugs?
* Sound engineer is wearing ear protection -> sound is tuned according to that bias (unless they are completely auditory neutral) -> you get the best sound by also wearing hearing protection
* Sound engineer is not wearing ear protection -> sound engineer probably has hearing damage due to prolonged exposure (and has a similar effect as hearing protection) -> sound is tuned according to that bias -> you do NOT have hearing damage, so you get the best sound by wearing hearing protection
The effect on the sound is the same in both cases and the correction is the same in both -- wear hearing protection. It only becomes the same sound regardless of what _you_ do in the long term, if you also get hearing loss due to prolonged exposure.
That might be why when I go to clubs/etc it seems like the treble is cranked up to 10 on those large speakers. I've changed my EQ preferences as I've gotten older to prefer a somewhat diminished treble/higher frequencies.
I've found the disposable Bilsom 303 earplugs to be the best for me, both for motorcycling and for concerts. Very comfortable, nice and even attenuation.
I recommend DownBeats earplugs. They are tiny and barely noticeable, which made me so much more likely to wear them to shows. Nice little carrying case too.
I have the balance problem, too. A hearing specialist suggested that one of the bones in my ear was made of a spongy material rather than bone, which can cause it.
Since a concert, I also have slight hearing loss on one hear.
Now I'm constantly being reminded to take care of my hearing due to the difference in "sound color" between left and right.
Fortunately I don't have a significant tinnitus, but was it certainly was a wake-up-call and I protect my ears much better now.
I'm relatively lucky, my hearing is still better than most, but it does suck.
I've decided I will never go to another club, and in bars I wear ear plugs. I have more to lose, since any additional damage will likely make my tinnitus more severe.
Seriously though, hearing is one of those things you don't think about until it's too late. Protect your ears.