MusicSafe Pro Hearing Protection System by Alpine… If you are a musician, your ears are essential for you to perform your craft at the top of your game.  This statement is so obvious that I almost feel silly mentioning it – except for the fact that a significant percentage of modern musicians have some level of hearing damage.  We have about 15,000 hair cells in each ear.  Exposure to loud sounds, especially over extended periods of time, can damage these cells – which leads to hearing loss.  One particular category of hearing loss is called Tinnitus, which is characterized by a ringing in the ears.  I mention this because I (and many of my contemporaries) have Tinnitus from many years of gigging.

The best way to avoid hearing loss is to protect your ears from loud noises.  I recently was given the opportunity to review one such hearing protection product:  MusicSafe Pro Hearing Protection System by Alpine.

This system consists of earplugs that are made from a flexible thermoplastic material and three interchangeble filters for low (White), medium (Silver) and high (Gold) attenuation rates.  The kit includes a carrying case for the earplugs, filters, an insertion device and an additional smaller case for storing the ear plugs on your key ring.

Here is a table that charts the attenuation of the three filters for the listed frequencies:

Attenuation values MusicSafe Pro in decibels

In Use

 have used hearing protection, off and on, ever since I first noticed that I had developed a mild case of Tinnitus.  I say “off and on” because I would sometimes forget to bring them and also because the set I used was a molded in-ear set from an audiologist that work wonderfully, but they were a little bit troublesome to use.

The MusicSafe Pro has addressed both of my issues.  They are now always with me, because I carry them in a case on my key ring, and they are made from a very flexible thermoplastic which is extremely comfortable and easy to place properly in my ears.

I primarily used the white filters with the least amount of attenuation so that I could best hear conversation and the monitor speakers while still protecting my ears from the most offending frequencies (IMHO) of the crash cymbal and the lead guitar.  The added benefit of the white filters is that they don’t attenuate the low frequencies as much as the highs, so that with the earplugs in place I actually found that I could hear my bass better in a gig situation than without the earplugs.

The real payoff is at the end of the night when we are all done playing. I simply pop out the earplugs and I can hear just as well as I could before the start of the gig – with no additional ringing!  Street Price: approximately $30.00.  For more information:  alpinehearingprotection.com/earplugs/musicsafe-pro/