I like the Dr. Macs soft moldable type. I'm not hot on the sponges. With either one, you can still get pregnant.

Also remember that hearing loss can be genetic and not necessarily just sound pressure levels. If audio that your hearing is getting distorted sounding, that's nerve deafness. If your high frequency response is going down, that can be from excessive sound pressure level and/or age. Everything has its price. I do believe those of us engineer/producers that listen carefully, even at higher listen levels are less prone to damage since we are carefully listening and not ignoring it or tuning it out as general background noise in factories and such goes. But let's face it, anything too loud will destroy your hearing. So make it a point not to hang out behind jet engines or Kiss concerts.

My hearing has never been the same after I let Gene Simmons puke blood on my shirt in '76....

I knew a singer in a metal band that had molded earplugs, I think he paid 100 US for them, but they only attenutated like 6db. He said they worked really well by taking the punch off the loudness, but still let him hear. However I have no personal experiance so if you have a hundred or so bucks you might try to those, but if not Id say start with a cheaper option.

I have never heard any hearing protection that was flat though, so you will have to trust your band that they are balanced. Which in my experiance is easier said than done.

My drummer wears huge earmuff type things, for shooting shotgun I think, while drumming and he always complains that the low end sounds muddy. Personally I think hes full of poo and just hearing a crappy sound because of the muffs.

any who good luck.

Very funny Moonbaby!! That must've been the 1976 tour of KISS? Where were you?

I think Gene Simmons did likewise to me in 1976 when I was working for the number one rock-and-roll station in Baltimore, as a disc jockey and I was forced to go to the Baltimore Civic Center to represent my station for Steve Seger and the silver bullet band opening for KISS! I was the only one smart enough to bring a pocket full of cotton and while I was sitting behind the PA mixers, the sound was so outrageously loud that your chest shuddered like you were having a heart attack and although I used my cotton and shared it with many other radio shnooks from the other stations, around me, I still left the show with significant hearing damage that lasted for days! Yes, the good old days. "if it's louder, it must be better"

Ms. Remy Ann David

It WAS 1976....I was in the front row in Jacksonville, and the crowd was SO excited after Styx finished their opening set, that we were shoved through the barriers in front! My buddy had just seen them in Miami and knew what to expect. He still has the T-shirt with the "blood" on it! The flash pots were SO close to us, our clothes smelled like gunpowder when we left. My buddy is a bassist, so we were right in front of this huge wall of Ampeg SVT heads/1x18" cabs...it was deafening. That's how I learned about how good RE-20s were for kick drums and bass amps....that's all they used. The only show I saw that was that loud was Deep Purple a couple of years prior to that.

Check out this thread:

(Dead Link Removed)

Westone molded earplugs rule and you can pick you attenuation (9db, 15db, 25db)

Wes

I've been using universal plugs rated at 32dB of attenuation for over a year. As a side effect I've also had my ears cleaned out a couple times because they are serious wax packers. I'm getting impressions done in 3 days for some custom 25dB plugs. Good investment for musicians who like to hear as well.

Cheers,
-Ryan-