Sudden or prolonged exposure to noise can cause damage to your hearing and is one of the leading causes of hearing loss. Hearing loss from prolonged noise exposure is often detected too late resulting in permanent hearing loss. Hearing loss from noise exposure may start as ringing in the ears after a loud concert or after using a power tool. Even if the ears don’t ring, if the noise is repeated, the damage to the ears adds up to cause a permanent hearing loss.
Hearing protection is extremely important for anyone who is in a high-noise environment including target shooters, motorcyclists, airline pilots, musicians, disc jockeys, rock concert goers, construction workers, auto mechanics and factory workers. Anyone subject to noise exposure should wear hearing protection to prevent long-term hearing loss.
Although over-the-counter earplugs offer some protection, custom-made earplugs offer a comfortable fit that is designed specifically for your ears. With a good fit, you are likely to get better protection for your hearing and will be inclined to use them whenever you are in high noise environments.
In some environments a combination of custom earplugs and head phones are recommended to provide maximum noise reduction to preserve your hearing. Your audiologist can recommend the proper combination of custom earplugs and sound reducing headphones.
Making Custom Earplugs
You will be scheduled for an appointment to discuss your requirements and to take an impression (or mold) of your ears. This process takes about 15 minutes. Your ears will be inspected for excessive wax or other conditions. A small cotton ball with a thread attached will be inserted in the ear canal. This blocks the impression material from entering too deeply in the ear. Soft impression material is put in the ear with a syringe. The material becomes firm from the warmth of your skin in about 2-3 minutes. The impressions are removed and sent to the lab that manufactures your custom plugs. The finished sound plugs are sent to us in about a week, ready to fit in your ears.
Earplugs come in a wide variety of styles described below, and we can decide on the style and color at your appointment. Some people order a cord attached to the plugs so that you can remove them and let them hang over your shoulders until you are ready to reinsert them.
Standard Custom Earplugs
These solid plugs have one level of sound reduction and are good for most noise reduction situations.
Musicians Ear Plugs
Musician’s ear plugs come in both custom and non-custom options. Ready-fit musician ear plugs can reduce sound levels by approximately 20 dB, enough to reduce harmful sound without distorting speech or music.
Musician’s earplugs sit deep in the canals to allow a good seal of the canal and reduce “occlusion”, a hollow or “boomy” sound in the wearer’s own voice. This type of plug is preferred by musicians because they retain good sound quality while practicing and performing. Musician’s plugs have a variety of filters that may be interchanged by the wearer to increase or decrease the amount of noise reduction.
Musician’s Ear Plugs Are Not Just For Musicians. They Are Also A Popular Hearing Protection Option For:
- Sound crews
- Recording engineers
- Band teachers
- Concert-goers
- DJs
- Airline personnel
- Athletic coaches
- Motorcyclists
- Medical professionals
- Construction workers
- Industrial workers
- Truck drivers
Musician’s Monitors
For musicians who perform for large audiences, in-ear musician monitors (IEMs) are the current standard in musician technology. They allow the musician to clearly hear the music they are making as the audience would hear it while still protecting the musician’s ears from extremely loud amplification systems and audiences.
IEMs work best if they are custom molded to fit each musician’s ears personally. However, there is still the option of universal fit musician monitors. Universal IEMs typically come with interchangeable foam or silicone tips to allow for a semi-custom fit.
Electronic Shooter’s Earplugs
We can order electronic earplugs used by shooters. When a gun is fired, the compression of the device reacts protecting the ears. In quiet, the user can hear environmental sounds and conversation and may have a volume control for soft environmental sounds.
Custom Earmolds for Earbuds, Headphones and Other Applications
People often complain that their earbuds are uncomfortable or that they fall out of their ears. We can order custom earplugs that are designed to fit onto earbuds thus securing them in your ears comfortably. The same process is used to make boom mic headsets for pilots, phone support staff and many other purposes.
Swimmers Earplugs
Some people need to keep water out of their ears during swimming or bathing. We make swim plugs for adults and children in many colors. And they float!