Instant Noise Cutoff Hearing Protection?

[Jason Hanko]

Just wondering if anyone out there has heard of these or owned these before...
http://www.amazon.com/Digital-Hearing-Protection-Instant-Cutoff/dp/B000HVRTA6/ref=pd_bbs_sr_2?ie=UTF8&s=hi&qid=1228678597&sr=8-2

This sounds like a really good idea but I dont know, at the same time something about the concept makes me a little leary.
Price is usually a good indicator of quality too...so Im not sure if these are cheap b/c they suck or because it's just not selling well since its unconventional.

[Jason Hanko]

Sigh... can a moderator please move this to General Woodworking?
See my sig.....:D

PS: Can we delete posts?

[Bruce Page]

At that price, I’d be leery too, but at that price, you can’t go too far wrong. One thing that caught my attention was the 2 hr life on two AA’s. My Bose will go 30-35 hours on one AAA.

[Tony Joyce]

I have a set of the Peltor tactical behind the head protectors. They amplify low level sounds and electronically suppresses hazardous sounds to 82 dBA within two milliseconds. It has a plug(proprietary) that I plug my Ipod in. You can turn off all external sound with the volume controls. Battery life is limited, mine uses 2 AA. I paid several times this price though, because I belive as you "Price is usually a good indicator of quality"

Tony Joyce

[Ray Newman]

This summer, I bought a pair of Peltor "Tactical Sport" muffs. The unit has a high noise reduction rating, auto shut off after 2 hrs, wind filter, & dual volume control. They replaced a 20 year old set of Peltors which were dropped too many times to reliably work all of the time.

Before, I bought the replacements, I tried several others. Luckily, Cabella’s exchanged them ea. time.

My recent experience is that you really need to wear them for awhile & make a decision as to whether they will be satisfactory. I found that the cheaper muffs were just too uncomfortable -- the cheaper plastic head bands & foam around the ears caused sweating &/or didn’t fit well (way too tight or too loose) . As for the muffs w/ the built-in radio, if you don’t have good radio reception to begin w/, radio ear muffs will not work or will fade in/out when you move around. Plus a unit w/o a wind filter was very distracting. Some work w/ hearing aids. Others will not work very well around electric motors found in the woodshop: TS, router, planer, etc.

My overall feeling is that it is not very smart economy to try to save money on ear muffs. If they didn’t fit right or cause irritation, you will not wear them. Speaking as someone w/ a hearing loss, your hearing doesn’t correct itself & hearing aids are a PITA -- big time PITA!

[Joe Chritz]

FWIW, Peltor is the brand that nearly all the "operators" wear. Military and police special ops teams use a metric ton of them. So do internet couch commandos but that is another story.

Sometime you really do get what you pay for.

Joe

[Lee Schierer]

A few years ago I tried the muffs from Rocklers and they worked okay for stopping the really loud noises. The only problem was they also amplified the other noises in the shop. My hand drill got to be almost as loud as the router with the muffs on. I returned them.

[Howard Acheson]

Here is the best discussion I have ever read about hearing protection in the shop. One of the participants is an audio engineer.

http://www.woodmagazine.com/dgroups/index.jsp?plckForumPage=ForumDiscussion&plckDiscussionId=Cat%3a97186dc4-8565-4d1a-acb0-8c53ed988d12Forum%3a0cac8ead-3430-4bd8-971b-fc2a6b09126fDiscussion%3a6b35a547-4478-4a7a-9855-3bd0d5a87918

[Kevin Arceneaux]

Peltor - they are one of the best out there.

[Lee DeRaud]

I've got a pair of Peltors from about 1996, bought for shooting. I have no idea what the battery life is in hours, I only put in the second set last year...figure 8-10 pistol matches per year, 2-3 hours of on-time for each match. The trick is to only turn them up until you can hear voices easily: if you can hear yourself breathing, they're set way too high. :p

I don't wear them in the shop because the noise there is (relatively) continuous, which makes the electronic cutoff feature more or less useless. The passive muffs are just as good in that environment.

(I tried a pair of the Bose active muffs, which are in theory better for continuous noise: they just didn't feel right, couldn't tell you why.)

EDIT: I assumed the ones I have are out of production, but these (http://www.amazon.com/Aearo-Peltor-Tactical-Ear-Muff/dp/B0015YWCWO/ref=sr_1_13?ie=UTF8&s=sporting-goods&qid=1228803487&sr=8-13) certainly look close.