3 Comments / Live Sound Equipment, Stage Equipment / By Raphael / February 5, 2024
- The Best Earplugs For Musicians
- Fender Musician Series Black
- Vic Firth High Fidelity
- Eargasm High Fidelity
- Things to Consider When Buying Musician Earplugs
- Type
- Sizing and Fit
- Usage Life
- Reusability
- Methodology – How We Chose Which Earplugs To Recommend
- Comments
Hearing protection is often overlooked by the very people who need it the most: us musicians.
Ear plugs can be uncomfortable and affect the frequency range in an uneven way making it hard to hear a proper representation of the sound you are trying to produce.
Even at the recommended mixing level of 83dB, you can only listen for a limited amount of time before hearing fatigue sets in. Giving your ears a rest with some high fidelity earplugs while doing non-critical work like arrangement or editing saves your ears to focus on critical listening.
Thanks to improvements in design from regular foam earplugs, these implements are much more comfortable and lower the volume in a more frequency-even way. Tinnitus and its relative conditions are a heavy burden to bear if not prevented or at least maintained at a bearable level.
It’s time to protect your hearing because when you lose it, it doesn’t come back.
The Best Earplugs For Musicians – 2024
Gearank* | SRC* | Check Price | ||
---|---|---|---|---|
Fender Musician Series Black | 89 | 700+ | ||
Vic Firth High Fidelity | 91 | 500+ | Sweetwater | |
Eargasm High Fidelity | 90 | 10650+ |
*Notes: Gearank = Rating score out of 100. SRC = Sources, number of gear owner and user opinions analyzed to produce a product's Gearank Rating. Further details: How Gearank Works.
Raphael Pulgar I've been an audio engineer for 20 years specializing in rock and metal recordings. I also play guitar and produce original music for my band and other content creators.
Fender Musician Series Black Ear Plugs
89 GEARANK 89 out of 100. Incorporating 700+ ratings and reviews. $9.99
From the legendary guitar makers Fender comes an affordable way to protect your hearing during concerts and long rehearsals. Design of these earplugs are a bit of a practical and standard matter lacking any fancy filtering or chambered parts that allow useful sound to come through in innovative ways. The result is a bit of frequency degradation when compared to other ear plugs that do feature some sort of acoustic wizardry. Still, having 4 flanges is much appreciated and this should fit most ears and go as deep as they need to to fulfill their purpose - protecting and prolonging your hearing. Also, clarity and performance is still good enough to deserve the word "Musician" in the title. They come with a carrying case and neck cord. While nothing to write home about in terms of build quality, they are useful accessories to have. If you're just starting out being responsible for your hearing and don't want to break the bank on something pricier, the Fender Musician Series Black Ear Plugs are a smart starting point with a simplistically spartan ethos while sporting the respected and trusted brand Fender. But if you're looking for something with a bit more bells and whistles (for a higher price), I suggest the Vic Firth High Fidelity Ear Plugs below. However if you need the extra protection at times, then these are a good option for that with their 27db NRR attenuation. *Displayed values are prior to the Gearank Algorithm's adjustments it makes when evaluating the source.Cons
Pros
Specifications
Rating Source Highlight
Website Source *Rating Value Louder Chris Barnes 80/100
Vic Firth High Fidelity Ear Plugs
91 GEARANK 91 out of 100. Incorporating 500+ ratings and reviews. $18.95
At publication time these were the Highest Rated Musician Ear Plugs. I've always used earplugs during loud concerts. The foam ones you get at the hardware store do an adequate job protecting my ears but with one caveat: They muffled everything. I could hear and feel the rumble of the bass, but the foam earplugs just cut out everything from 200hz above. This made the concert and live performance experience very unsatisfying for me for the longest time. I actually discovered high fidelity earplugs by doing product research for this guide and saw that the highly rated Vic Firth High Fidelity earplugs were available at my local shop. I went ahead and bought them to road test them during a show. Unlike generic foam earplugs, High Fidelity ear plugs usually don't completely block out sound. They are specially tuned to let through sound as flat as possible to give the sensation of just having lowered the overall volume of the environment going into your ears. The Vic Firth High Fidelity Ear Plugs were developed by Etymotic based on their ETY-Plugs design except tweaked to let more bass frequencies in; something that is especially beneficial on stage. I also own the Etymotic ETY-Plugs and I prefer the way the Vic Firth plugs sound especially on stage. I need to be able to hear the bass guitar and the kick drum to keep track of my tempo. The ETY-Plugs roll off a bit too much of the low end to my ears and it feels less exciting to perform with them. I also noticed that cymbals retain their high frequency sizzle and quite a bit of detail compared to standard foam earplugs. This is great if the beat is maintained by keeping track of the cymbals, especially during quieter passages where generic foam earplugs just tune everything above 400hz out. Even if you're not a drummer, The Vic Firth High Fidelity Ear Plugs were tuned with performers in mind. It's a great choice to keep the stage volume going into your ears low while retaining some bass perception, making it easier for singers and instrumentalists to hear vital parts of the live mix. *Displayed values are prior to the Gearank Algorithm's adjustments it makes when evaluating the source.Cons
Pros
Visible here is the "resonance chamber" of the ear plugs. These are tuned to resonate with the vibrations in the air and let some of the sound into your ears in a controlled manner; not just volume-wise, but frequency-wise as well.Specifications
Rating Source Highlights
Website Source *Rating Value Gearank Raphael Pulgar 93/100 YouTube Michael Mingoia Music 95/100
Eargasm High Fidelity Earplugs
90 GEARANK 90 out of 100. Incorporating 10650+ ratings and reviews. $41.88
The Eargasm High Fidelity Earplugs are a popular set marketed mainly towards festival and concert-goers. They make great musician earplugs because of their "filtering" out of dangerous frequencies instead of just blocking it all leaving you free to experience and create music albeit at a lower volume. Having a moderately high noise attenuation, a waterproof aluminum carrying case, and 2 sets of eartip sizes, makes them ideal for loud rock concerts. The removable filters are preinstalled in the standard sized shells but can be moved to the smaller shells without much fuss. These earplugs sound great for live sound mixing too as they don’t filter out too many high frequencies, unlike regular foam earplugs. Cleaning them is a straightforward affair needing only a bit of soap, water and cloth (remove the filters before cleaning!). Hygiene is not to be overlooked with earplugs as dirty ones can cause some nasty ear infections… ouch! Some negatives I've found with these plugs are that they can be a bit hard to take out when inserted deeply with only a smallish pull out tab to help. This gets slippery after some normal, sweaty use but with a bit of effort it shouldn't take too long. Also, I would like to have seen them include some sort of string connecting between the two plugs. This makes them harder to lose in case one falls off and you can hang them around your neck ready for insertion the moment you need them. This is more of a deliberate design choice to make them less attention-grabbing (they're not exactly invisible) but based on past experiences, I see myself losing these often. These are a great set of earplugs with the music in mind. It strives to be quite unobtrusive and is a massive step up from your run-of-the-mill hardware store foam plugs. If you need earplugs that feel great, come with 2 sizes and still allow you to converse, interact and generally do your job, these are a highly-rated set of earplugs that you should definitely look into. *Displayed values are prior to the Gearank Algorithm's adjustments it makes when evaluating the source.Cons
Pros
Specifications
Rating Source Highlights
Website Source *Rating Value Legit Reviews Nathan Kirsch 88/100 Lifewire Jason Schneider 92/100
Buying your first pair of earplugs may be confusing especially when you can’t try them before you buy them. Below are some things you might want to keep in mind when selecting a pair. A typical rock concert is around 106db to 110db. According to research done by Etymotic, you can only be exposed to those levels for no more than 5 minutes before hearing damage can occur. Typical musicians' earplugs attenuate 12db to 25db which brings the levels low enough for safe prolonged exposure. Having a good sound engineer that knows how to apply Noise Gates and Audio Ducking also helps.Things to Consider When Buying Musician Earplugs
Type
Sizing and Fit
Attenuation & Noise Reduction Rating (NRR)
Usage Life
Reusability
Ear Protection Using In-Ear Monitor Systems
The first edition was first published in 2019. We began by creating a short-list of 13 sets of earplugs that have been designed or reported as working well for the needs of musicians and which are available from major American retailers that sell music gear - you can see them in our Music Gear Database. We then collected and analyzed the data from over 34,200 reviews, ratings and comments (a 9.2% increased over the previous edition) and put these into the Gearank Algorithm to produce the rating scores out of 100 that you see above that indicate market sentiment about each one. From there, we selected the highest rated options to recommend. For more information about our methods see How Gearank Works.Best Musician's Earplug Selection Methodology
Here are the key people and sources involved in this guide's production - click on linked names for information about their music industry backgrounds. Raphael Pulgar I've been an audio engineer for 20 years specializing in rock and metal recordings. I also play guitar and produce original music for my band and other content creators. I was born with tinnitus which causes me to hear a high pitched ringing sound at around 10khz all the time. It gets perceptively louder when I am in silence hence, me listening to music all the time was my daily workaround. Ear plugs make it possible for me to work as an Audio Engineer in circ*mstances where I wouldn't be able to otherwise. Alden Acosta: Additional product research. Main/Top Image: Created by Gearank.com using photographs of the Eargasm High Fidelity, Vic Firth High Fidelity and Fender Musician Series Black. The individual product images were sourced from their respective manufacturers' websites, promotional materials or supporting documentation except for the Vic Firth Chamber photo which was taken by the Author.About the Author and Contributors
Lead Author & Researcher
Contributors
Jason Horton: Editing and Illustrating.Media
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