Ear Protection (drumming)

Ken O

At the beginning of this year my 10 year old joined band, he is in the percussion group. We got him a snare drum and he's been doing really well.
This week his music teacher apparently got a donated, heavily used drum kit. She had no need for it in music class, so she passed it along to my Animal in training.
I probably should have thought about this earlier, but as he was jamming out yesterday I realized he is going to be in dire need of some ear protection. I realize I can just grab some cheap ear plugs, but since I have very limited musical knowledge I figured I'd throw the question out here to see if any other musicians have recommendations.

Fiendishrabbit

Good earplugs are not that much more expensive than cheap earplugs and are generally easier to fit too.

For kids though you have the problem that the market is niched and children need better hearing protection than adults (their middle ear isn't fully developed so...). Anyway, I'm not sure for example what the hearing fidelity if we're looking at for example Alpine Pluggies (which is a relatively cheap and decent quality option for kids) while Alpines MusicSafe have a pretty good fidelity, but are too large for childrens ears.

P.S: I realize that both my options were Alpines. They're not the only brand on the market, but it's a reliable option IMHO.

Burtletoy

I've used plenty of 3m noise reduction headsets for dangerous noise levels at work, but I'm not a musician. I don't know how negatively that would effect...being able to hear what you are playing?

Something like this is very good for stopping harmful noise and not terribly uncomfortable

https://www.amazon.com/3M-90565-4DC-PS-Pro-Grade-Earmuff/dp/B01MXYJ2QP/ref=asc_df_B01MXYJ2QP/?tag=hyprod-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=312169643509&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=10390789900011480700&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=m&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=1027744&hvtargid=pla-494864907275&psc=1

SummaryJudgment

Ken O wrote: »

At the beginning of this year my 10 year old joined band, he is in the percussion group. We got him a snare drum and he's been doing really well.
This week his music teacher apparently got a donated, heavily used drum kit. She had no need for it in music class, so she passed it along to my Animal in training.
I probably should have thought about this earlier, but as he was jamming out yesterday I realized he is going to be in dire need of some ear protection. I realize I can just grab some cheap ear plugs, but since I have very limited musical knowledge I figured I'd throw the question out here to see if any other musicians have recommendations.

Motorcyclist with tinnitus here!

I don't know how it works for drummers (I don't know if they plug in to the same monitoring systems), but you might look into a set of isolating earbuds / In-Ear Monitors that musicians use. I wear a pair of Shure SE-215s right now on my bike, which lets me enjoy music / listen to navigation commands while still getting protection from wind and car noise. https://www.amazon.com/Shure-SE215-K-Isolating-Earphones-MicroDriver/dp/B004PNZFZ8.

Ken O

Thanks everyone! I ordered a kids over the ear set last night. He doesn't do great with earpods and things like that. So him and I talked about it and looked at pictures of a few different things. Like his father, he fixated on the one with skulls on them. They aren't the best, but have a NRR of 22dB. I figure as he gets more comfortable with them we'll grow into the nicer earplugs. We'll see how they fit when they arrive.