Electronic hearing protection

[Julian D]

Good morning all,

Looking to purchase some electronic muffs shortly , had a poke around the other day & looked at a few different brands & styles.

Came up with 3M Peltor tactical 6S , as my pick of the bunch so far because they are compact & light. Aprox $250 here in Oz.

Question is does anyone on here use them? Are you happy with them? Would you recommend another style or brand?

I have never particularly liked wearing muffs before, so they need to be small & light but offer some sort of protection.

All opinions & comments greatly accepted.

Thanks

[Gadget]

Hi Julian
Yeh I use the Peltor Pro Tac's and have for 5 years, my mates like them so much that there are now about 8 to 10 pairs in use.
There are now so many pairs on Nowra range that I carry a pack of AAA batteries in my range bag for the time that someone will need some ( one set lasts about 18 month's ) but you get no warning they are running out, I just get the Bunning's bulk pack.
Invest and enjoy
Gadget

[AlanF]

I use the backband style of 6S - means you can wear a wide-brimmed hat with them.

[ecomeat]

Julian,
The wiring on my Howard Leight ones is getting a bit tatty after four years and I had been thinking about replacing them. I just looked up these ones that you have listed and others recommended, and the Amazon website states that they can be shipped to Australia for free, and sell for USD$117-00 via your Amazon account

[Julian D]

Excellent stuff guys , thank you .

I will check it out Tony , thanks for the heads up.

[ShaneG]

The only retail left in Australia in years to come will be food and petrol stations.
Have a good think about that!
Maybe a few specialised service industries and medical.
with 80% of the population on the dole or pension who will be paying?
Shane

[Barry Davies]

Being somewhat addicted to Chocolate ( who isn't ) I noticed in our local supermarket my favourite block reduced from $4-60 to $2. Don't know but I guess they still make a profit at that, be it small. Sort of makes me ask the question " why can't they sell it at $2 all of the time? ( and it's made in Germany to boot )
Yep, we are being ripped at every turn, and that's why we now shop at Aldi -- save around $ 40 per week AND still buy 80% local produce.

Barry

[shooter mcreid]

The peltors are excellent, got mine from the states for $120.

[Normmatzen]

I'm afraid I have to disagree with the positive things said about muffs.

First, the reason we use hearing protection is for,,,,PROTECTION!
Second, Who am I to say?

Well, I am an electronic engineer and spent 40 years designing analog integrated circuits or "chips." As my last job prior to retirement was in the hearing industry (We did research and product development for the ear), I decided to learn about the ear and hearing. I went back to university and took the graduate program in audiology. An interesting side benefit of both professions is that they both have disdain for anecdotal evidence and rely instead on lab testing and peer reviewed publications.

My employer sold high quality musicians ear plugs used by many professional musicians as well as HI-FI ear plugs for the rest of us. We also made what was the most popular analog hearing aid amplifier during the 90's as well as an oto-acoustic emissions hearing test system to be used for new born babies. And on and on!

Here in the USA we have OSHA to protect us! In the 70's there was a popular poster showing a camel with the title "A Horse to OSHA specifications." They developed a method of specifying hearing protection some years ago called NRR or noise reduction rating. The manufacturer of hearing protection had to measure the best attenuation of their hearing protection, determine the ways people could mis-install them and take the reduction in attenuation and subtract it from the best protection. An example is the old "yellow foamies" which are actually about the best protection you can get with 39dB reduction and above. However, it would boggle your mind to see the "creative" way folks will wear them! That is why foamies are NRR rated at 28-33 dB.

Back to the muffs. You will notice that all popular muffs are rated approximately 23 to 26 dB. if one subtracts 26 dB from the gunshot blast of a 284 WIN at 165 dB or so, your ear drum hears 139dB! The threshold of pain is 120 dB and hearing degradation has already started!
As it turns out, if you sealed off your ear canal completely, your mastoid bone surrounding the ear transmits sound to the middle ear with somewhat over 40 dB attenuation. If you wear foamies and insert them correctly, you will have nearly 40 dB of protection, the most you can get. Of course, you can't hear your mate shooting next to you and when you can hear him, it is distorted as the high frequencies are cut way more than lows. All muffs that appeal to shooters due to their thin size so it doesn't get in the way of the gun are rated at around 25 dB NRR, but the problem is, muffs don't get any better than that! You can carefully insert a foamie and get up to nearly 40 dB but no fiddling will raise a muff more than 1-2 dB!
I know, they are convenient, etc, etc, but they do NOT adequately protect your hearing. What you can do is buy a pair of HI-FI ear plugs on ebay for 10-15 USD or ETY-PLUGS or whatever they are called today made by Etymotic Research. These plugs have a pretty stable 20dB attenuation and still have very good fidelity, that plus the amplifier built in to most popular ear muffs will allow you to hear your neighbor when it is quiet and also give you maximum protection (25dB plus 20 dB yields 45 db total which will be degraded by the old mastoid bone to 40 or so).
You can get muffs that have protection up towards 38 db or so, but they are heavy and big and bulky as well as way more expensive!
What do I use when shooting F Class and Bench Rest you ask? All my practice and competition I use a pair of Etymotic Gunsport-PRO or GSP-15. These are rated at 25dB due to the fact they are supplied with 7 different ear tips for you to choose from. Unfortunately, most folks choose based on perceived comfort or ease of installation and end up with 25dB. The best attnuation is the black foam (Yes, like a black yellow foamie!) and next best is the 3 flanged tips. I use the 3 flanged tips as I am too lazy to order more foam tips (Needed as they get grotty soon).

I believe these are available also on ebay for $250 or so. A nice side benefit is that they have excellent fidelity (as any well designed ANALOG hearing aid amplifier has) and as they are not digital, the delay thru the amplifier is insignificant so your situational awareness is enhanced instead of degraded as it is in a digital amplifier with different delays in both ears totally screwing with your ability to localize sounds. That is why these plugs have been approve for police and military use.

Enough of my soap box!

[saum2]

Excellent post norm.
I've been using the Peltor electronic muffs for some years while shooting. I'm sure my hearing has degraded, my wife tells me it has daily as well. Time to reconsider hearing protection.

[bartman007]

I was wondering if anyone has had experience with the Etymotic range of eletronic ear plugs that are configured for shooting sports.

GSP1 and GSP15 are two models, of note. I was interested in how they compair to eletronic ear muffs, and if they are worth the money???


$500

Norm, where were you back in 2012 when I posted this

I'll investigate supply again now. Cheers, and let's protect our Ears......

[saum2]

Ok Shane over to you. Are you able to source and supply locally to hearing protection standards that Norm has posted. I'll be your first customer. I have electronic ear muffs but want to improve my hearing protection and keep what hearing I have left.
Geoff

[Gerard]

Interesting thread, but one thing that I didn't find was any reference to the materials that are used to seal around your ear when using electronic earmuffs.
i.e. foam padding vs gel.

Gel seals work well for me from a comfort perspective and I don't have to fiddle with them even in hot weather. I suspect that they seal better than other foam headsets I have. (but thats difficult to prove). I use MSR Sordin headset/earmuffs and find they are not as bulky as some others and the contours suit me shooting prone (in my opinion).

Personally I find that a combination of in ear foam plugs together with my MSR Sordin electronic earmuffs means that I can greatly reduce distraction when on the firing line by turning the electronics off. And when having conversations with the electronics on there is volume no cut off when someone fires. (only audio limiting/compression).

Looking solely at the spec sheet I recall the MSR Sordins don't claim to offer as much DB reduction as Peltor TAC 100 or Sport (the ones I was comparing at the time), but my research at the time of buying still made we decide in their favour. But I can say that I'm entirely happy with them... my wallet, less so.

Ideally, we could all try before we buy.. but that isn't always possible.
Im happy to let anyone shooting with me try mine for a while to compare with their own/others.

Finally,
Not that I hunt, but I have discovered that without in ear foam plugs and using just the MSR Sordins with electronics turned right up, every foot step is very clear to hear (exaggerated even). I suspect that this aspect would make you more aware of the noise you make when stalking. I can hear much better with the headset on than off.

cheers,
Gerard.

[Normmatzen]

Bartman,

In 2012 I didn't know OZFCLASS existed! I have a close friend and mentor in the Sidney area that I once worked with and he turned me on to ozfclass, thank you very much!

By the way, I will contact Etymotic and see if they will allow me to distribute their hearing protection products as I once did for motorcycle riders here in the US. I know they are not really keen on appointing an Australian distributor.

I would bet not many of you know there is a facility in Australia called NAL which I believe stands for National Audiological Laboratories. These are some world class sharp cookies! My old boss didn't always see eye to eye with the NAL director, but he had a lot of respect for him!

[Longranger]

Having tried and subsequently returned 3M electronic tactical earplugs due to reliability issues, I ended up purchasing Etymotic GSP-15 earplugs. Superior in sound quality than the 3M's and so far, have proved reliable. I also use them for work particularly with impact noise. Large 450MW generator circuit breakers tend to be very noisy when they close! Conveniently, they are tax deductible for that reason.

Hearing is precious and I've already got some damage (as my good wife will attest..) so don't scrimp on hearing protection. I use my Etymotics in conjunction with Pro Ears Gold earmuffs which seems to work well without compromising the ability to hear range commands etc.