Hearing protection

[Okie Again]

I am becoming more concerned with my Tinnitus I have had for years. It seems to be getting worse. Seems like sitting on a tractor running a brush hog can't be good. I am using just ear muffs now. Are any of you using the noise cancelling head phones with music? Would these provide good ear protection?

 

[snymat68]

Personally, I feel that pumping music into your ears is kind of defeating the purpose of using ear muffs.

Noise cancelling wouldn't defeat the purpose at all. I'm just not sure what their limits would be with extra loud noises.

I currently use regular ear muffs with a radio built in. They do pretty well at lowering the dB's. You could always use muffs over plugs for ultimate protection.

 

[Industrial Toys]

I mostly use work tunes, old and new (digital) style. I rebroadcast Youtube material on FM and it works out nice. I don't subscribe or log in to anything, but youtube sure knows what I like to listen to based on the first song I search and play. The headsets don't go as loud as I might like, but I guess that's a good thing.

Makes you wonder about people that wear ear buds 24/7.

 

[KennyG]

You can use the noise cancelling headphones with no input and they cut the noise. However, be aware that many of them are "tuned" for aircraft noise and don't work well in some other situations. I'm pretty happy with good over ear protectors. Not sure that noise cancelling would do better. I use in ear bluetooth buds under the ear muffs to listen to my phone.

 

[ruffdog]

For very loud conditions, I'll wear muffs and earplugs. Most the time it is just one or the other. I find that earplugs will block the loud noises so I can hear a radio better.

 

[Argonne]

I used 3M worktunes for years and was very pleased with them. They have AM/FM radio and Bluetooth so you can listen to media from your phone. The only shortcoming was that they had no microphone so you couldn't answer the phone and talk even if you heard the ringtone while using bluetooth, and, the bluetooth implementation for even hearing the ringtone was imprecise, sometimes you would hear it, sometimes not. This may be fixed in newer or different models, I don't know.

A couple of months ago I was mowing one of the pastures and a tree branch whipped the worktunes off my head and tossed them right under the brushhog...no more worktunes. I couldn't afford to replace them, but I kept an eye out for something cheaper. A month ago, I finally found a replacement for half the cost of the worktunes, "Rifleman - Bluetooth Communication Hearing Protection - Electronic Ear Muffs Bluetooth Technology Compatible - NRR 25 - Hearing Amplification and Protection -Black - RFCMBBX" at https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07NW7NYN2/ref=emc_b_5_t

These things are actually superior to the worktunes in one way. The Bluetooth implementation is better in that it handles both calling and media well, and, it has a microphone. The noise cancelling isn't great, but if the phone rings I kill the tractor anyway, so no big deal. They do not have a radio tuner, but I seldom listen to music anyway, and if i do want to, my phone can feed programming to the headset better than a tuner could.

The Amazon link says they are "currently unavailable" and there is no price showing, but I think they were about $40. Don't know why they are unavailable, but they way things are these days other vendors might have them or selling the same product under a different name, I didn't research it.

 

[Argonne]

Noise cancelling is OK, but my point is that with tinnitus, wouldn't you want to eliminate ALL noise that you can?
Why eliminate noise and then pump more noise back into your ears?

I have it too. The point is to prevent further damage with loud noise. Once you eliminate the tractor roar, it's fine to add back in normal levels of sound.

 

[EddieWalker]

I put a pair of orange foam ear plugs in my pocket every day. I wear them every time I do something that is going to be noisy. Most of the time when I'm cutting a lot of wood, I just keep them in all day. When I'm going to do something extra super loud, I put in the ear plugs and also put on a set of head phones. This is for shooting, using a grinder or cutting metal. I've been doing it for 30 years and feel that my hearing is better then most people my age. I plan to continue doing this the rest of my life. You just have to get used to doing it every time you are dealing with loud noise, and most importantly, have the ear plugs with you. They may not be considered the very best at stopping noise by some people, but they are better then nothing, and when installed properly, I feel that they do a great job.

 

[Thomas]

There no excuse why I should wear ear protection other than I'm to darn stubborn.

 

[Argonne]

I wouldn't say I'm "fresh as a daisy" when I get off the tractor after 4 or 5 hours of mowing, but I find I am much less fatigued in general if I wear hearing protection while using my bigger tractors. I would go so far as to say that the noise is the most fatiguing thing about the activity. With Bluetooth hearing protectors, I am also not totally disconnecting myself from the world for all of that time. Of course you CAN forget to turn them on too.