Ear Defenders.

[jhoneyball]

The normally accepted figure is 85dB noise for an 8 hour day. But different people have different views on the "85dB" figure, depending on whether you are talking noise, music etc etc.

Without doubt, even my Schuberth helmet, claimed to be one of the quietest on the market, is too noisy when making "brisk progress"

[battered]

jhoneyball said:

The normally accepted figure is 85dB noise for an 8 hour day. But different people have different views on the "85dB" figure, depending on whether you are talking noise, music etc etc.

Without doubt, even my Schuberth helmet, claimed to be one of the quietest on the market, is too noisy when making "brisk progress"

IIRC the noise at work regs state it as 85dB(A) being the threshold for compulsory ear protection and 80 dB(A) for "employer must provide, use at employee's discretion". This is the A weighted scale, there is no distinction in law as to whether the noise is music or machinery, it's just down to the dBA measure.

It is complex though, I'm not sure what constitutes the "A" weighted scale, the principle (iirc) is that these frequencies are the most harmful or difficult to attenuate or contain the most energy. It's the energy that does the damage. Effectively it is a constant physical battering of your ear drum, obviously the harder the blows the worse the damage. A mate of mine is an expert in this stuff, but he's a H&S manager so it's his job.

[bogie]

An no helmet has been made yet that is under 85dB @ 70mph

When I worked in a factory in the 80's It used to be "no more than 85dB for 2 hours per day" but no doubt that has changed to be on the more cautious side these days. It is pretty easy to get used to daily background noise and if you are going gradually deaf over time, it becomes normal.

I suspect many who say their hearing is fine and are in their forties, would go and have an hearing test and actually be offered hearing aids ...I know I was quite surprised when I saw the graphs of just how much my hearing had deteriorated.

But then during a normal working day you dont typically use all the hearing range; just the lower/middle bit and then wake up in your 50's having difficulty with conversations, get tested and "oohhh...Ive gone deaf all of a sudden" when the reality is you have been losing it gradually over the last 20 years of abuse......

[Mr2Mike]

carinatauk said:

I'm with julian64 on this, I don't wear ear plugs. I do wear a hearing device for the satnav when I need to.

Why? the times I have tried wearing them over the upmteen years I have ridden, made me feel isolated and unsure at times.

Yes, it felt exactly like that for me for a while but you very quickly adapt to it. I find can hear far more important stuff with my earplugs in than I can without, because wind noise is very good at blocking out other sound.

This is the main reason I find Julian's arguments laughable. Unless he's literally filling his ears with concrete, or maybe he's already partially deaf, then his arguments about them making you completely deaf and accident prone are utterly ridiculous.

His opinions on wind noise not causing hearing damage are also toss, and whilst he is entirely free to ruin his own ears, it's pretty irresponsible for a doctor to advocate a practice that is likely to cause hearing damage in others.

Edited by Mr2Mike on Sunday 31st July 16:09

[bogie]

OverSteery said:

bogie said:

I read that too, well the CEO has gone and production is pretty much stopped.

There was another new manufacturer just doing integrated noise cancelling, so maybe still a possibility yet

sena are working on one, but I don't think its on the market yet.
http://www.sena.com/product/noise-control-helmet/

I was just reading a review on the Sena helmet. I think that its going to be more weird to wear than just ear plugs. It has enclosed earpieces inside. When I used to wear a car rally style helmet with comms and sealed ear pieces, it really isolated you from the outside world. Then switch on the noise cancelling effect and you wont hear anything at all, which is not too good from a safety POV. You have to press a button to switch it off to talk/hear people nearby.

At least wearing ear plugs you can hear everything as normal, they just take the edge off...anyway, time will tell if this tech catches on and goes mainstream, think I can manage with the ear plugs for now.....

[jhoneyball]

battered said:

It is complex though, I'm not sure what constitutes the "A" weighted scale, t

Its the blue curve here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A-weighting

Unfortunately, like so many things baked into ISO/ITU/IEC specs, its a crap curve which is being used outside of its scope. But hey ho.

Edited by jhoneyball on Saturday 30th July 07:36

[battered]

Thanks jh, that's useful. I take it you've studied this then?

[jhoneyball]

i own and run a product R&D test lab for clients round the world.