Hearing Aids in Helmets | GTAMotorcycle.com

Hearing Aids in Helmets

Emefef

Emefef

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I know lots of people wear earplugs, and earbuds for music and communications, but what about hearing aids?
I currently wear the squishy yellow and red disposable plugs.
I will be getting fitted for some form of device, and my concerns are:

a) can they serve the same purpose as the ear plugs, if I adjust the volume, i.e. can I just adjust the volume down and have the sound for a quiet ride (and am I actually protecting my hearing), or would I remove them and still use the earplugs?

b) comfort - I'll probably want the smallest thing I can get, under the assumption that something outside my ear will be difficult to put a helmet over.

Anybody with any experience?
 
Between high explosives and bagpipes I have considerable hearing loss. I wear in ear hearing aids but not when riding. A mould of your ear will be taken to give the hearing aids a good fit but they are made of hard plastic and offer minimal noise reduction. On the highway it is foam earplugs (3m 1100) or earbuds fitted with a foam earpiece (comfy tips) which works very well for noise reduction. Be careful and try to keep as much of what is left of your hearing!
 
I do not have any personal experience. However, I have a friend that has a hearing aid. It is so small you can hardly see it. Expensive. He can adjust where he can concentrate the sound coming from with an app on his cell phone. Amazing. Hope this might help.
 
Personally I like to hear everything going on all around me when I ride a motorcycle.
 
Full earplugs with more than NRR 30db. You really need to get used to it. I know people think you can't hear anything, but it's actually the other way around. They lower the volume down enough that you can hear surroundings and people around you. I use drive-thru all the time.

Also, I have Cardo Packtalk Bold installed in my helmet and it's loud enough that you can hear it with your earplugs. I have no problem talking on the phone at 120kph+
 
I tried out a set and they wouldn't reduce any noise, just amplify. So even if you turned them off, they wouldn't add any hearing protection.
 
Baggsy said:
I tried out a set and they wouldn't reduce any noise, just amplify. So even if you turned them off, they wouldn't add any hearing protection.
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thanks everyone, and Baggsy that's the kind of thing I'm looking for. I rode for almost 30 years without any protection, then got diagnosed with mild hearing loss. I wear protection with power tools, at the few concerts I've ever attended, and I don't generally listen to music through ear buds. So I can only assume that if the hearing loss has been from environmental causes, it was riding. After the first few rides with earplugs - I was convinced. You can hear or feel what you need to, and one of the biggest unexpected benefits was that I found it far less tiring on longer rides. I've worn Shoei RF1100 and 1200 for several years, and found that the wind noise differs a lot based on the bike's windscreen or fairing, but the earplugs all but eliminate it.
I'll talk to the specialists about it - it would be a bit of a pain to be taking the devices in and out every time I ride.
 
jemlinus said:
Full earplugs with more than NRR 30db. You really need to get used to it. I know people think you can't hear anything, but it's actually the other way around. They lower the volume down enough that you can hear surroundings and people around you. I use drive-thru all the time.

Also, I have Cardo Packtalk Bold installed in my helmet and it's loud enough that you can hear it with your earplugs. I have no problem talking on the phone at 120kph+
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Really? I use blue hearros with listed nrr 33 but can't do any conversation. My hearing must be real bad

Sent from my SM-G930W8 using Tapatalk
 
moarmoto said:
Really? I use blue hearros with listed nrr 33 but can't do any conversation. My hearing must be real bad

Sent from my SM-G930W8 using Tapatalk
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That's strange. All ear plugs do is lower the sound level at your ears. Assuming you were at 90 dBA at your ear prior to ear plugs, to easily talk on the phone, the packtalk will need to be ~100 dBA at your ear. Installing hearing protection, reduces ambient noise to 60 and the pactalk to 70. Audibility hasn't really changed, you just shifted down to a lower level. Now if you are talking about person to person conversation off the bike, yes, it is possible that the person needs to speak up a bit as their voice will drop to 20 or 30 dBA which may be hard for some people to decipher.

As far as hearing aids providing protection, other have nailed it. The vast majority are not designed to make the required seal (which would make them less comfortable for full-time use and I could see causing some problems with trapping the moisture in there 16+ hours per day).
 
Got a pair of bone conduction earphones, coupled with earplugs, it's pretty gaddamn awesome. It's only once you put on the earplugs that you realize how loud the wind noise truly is inside your helmet.
 
LePhillou said:
Got a pair of bone conduction earphones, coupled with earplugs, it's pretty gaddamn awesome. It's only once you put on the earplugs that you realize how loud the wind noise truly is inside your helmet.
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Your post got me thinking. The economy option for the OP is a set of IEM's with a built in mic. I haven't personally played with them so I'm not sure how much amplification is available though.

If the helmet was out of the equation, 3M makes over the ear muffs for hunting that amplify surrounding sounds when it's quiet and then shut that system off and become passive protection when you shoot. Theoretically, that control system could be adapted to iem's with an adjustable threshold, but I doubt the market would support the required R & D.
 
GreyGhost said:
That's strange. All ear plugs do is lower the sound level at your ears. Assuming you were at 90 dBA at your ear prior to ear plugs, to easily talk on the phone, the packtalk will need to be ~100 dBA at your ear. Installing hearing protection, reduces ambient noise to 60 and the pactalk to 70. Audibility hasn't really changed, you just shifted down to a lower level. Now if you are talking about person to person conversation off the bike, yes, it is possible that the person needs to speak up a bit as their voice will drop to 20 or 30 dBA which may be hard for some people to decipher.

As far as hearing aids providing protection, other have nailed it. The vast majority are not designed to make the required seal (which would make them less comfortable for full-time use and I could see causing some problems with trapping the moisture in there 16+ hours per day).
Click to expand...
Yeah, that's what I meant, off the bike. Comm system, if I crank up the volume it's fine unless I'm doing over 100

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