Rock on into summer safely: Your ears need protection

As festival and summer sports seasons kick off across the region, there are many reasons to get excited and a couple of reasons to take precautions. Those two reasons reside on the other side of your head.    

Concerts and sporting events, for all their magical qualities, can be loud and sustained high volumes — as our smart watches increasingly let us know — can cause hearing damage. As such, CAA spoke with Jennifer Allen, manager of audiology medical services at Connect Hearing, about what eventgoers can do to minimize hearing damage while taking in the best of what summer has to offer.   

“At any loud event, it would be important to wear good quality hearing protection,” Allen says. “A good rule of thumb to tell whether or not you should wear your hearing protection is if the noise is loud enough that you need to shout to be heard by someone an arm’s length away.”   

Allen says we should all protect our hearing when the noise level is high at such events, but younger children are particularly vulnerable and should always be given protection.   

Ear protection is a good idea 

She recommends earplugs and says what you spend can vary depending on your budget. There is a range of products available, from over-the-counter earplugs to custom-fitted protection. Even generic earplugs, whether silicone, acrylic or foam, will make a difference if they’re properly fitted to your ears. She says they should offer a seal, and one way to check to ensure they fit correctly is to try speaking when you’re wearing them. If your voice sounds different to you — louder and lower — chances are they’re a good fit. Meanwhile, audiophiles who don’t want to lose range in the music they’re listening to or miss the crowd’s roars at a game can invest in custom earplugs.   

“For concerts, we have flat-attenuation earplugs, which are called musicians’ earplugs, and they preserve the sound fidelity and are really well known in the music industry because they take the sound level down without changing the sound of the music,” she says, adding that she can vouch for the Audio Nova brand for this purpose.   

She noted that custom earplugs are recommended for optimal noise protection. There are special ones made for hunting, driving (motorcycles, for example), focusing (for working in a noisy office), airplanes, and swimming (these keep water out of your ears).   

Allen says custom earplugs cost about $200, but they are made to fit each person’s ears, so they’re much more comfortable and will last for many years.