Noise Cancelling Motorcycle Hearing Protection VS Passive Noise Canceling

Kevin King inspired this article, and it is one that has and is causing a lot of confusion because of the marketing of Noise Canceling motorcycle hearing protection and noise canceling products in general.

Here is his Question and I will answer this inline below for ease and full understanding.

Kevin:

While my motorcycle was in for routine 24K maintenance, I sat in the customer lounge perusing a BMW owner magazine.  In the magazine was a small advertisement from Big Ear Inc concerning “noise-canceling” in-ear product.  When I went to your website, the products you offered do not reference noise-cancelling product features.  I watched the YouTube video, and I do not recall a reference to noise-cancellation.

Kevin, all our products are hearing protection first, from our basic ear plugs, our filtered ear plugs, and even our custom stereo earbuds are all Noise Canceling Motorcycle Hearing Protection.

Does BigEar sell an ACTIVE-noise cancellation in-ear product?

Big Ear does not sell an active noise cancellation hearing protection device because active noise canceling does not protect your hearing. It creates an anti frequency that eliminates some frequencies but has very little hearing protection in any device. 

We do not add more sound to try and reduce some frequencies. It does not work in the wind.

When you are dealing with a motorcycle and wind and road noise it is an extremely loud environment, (115-120+dB’s),  and the frequencies are so intense and varying that no noise canceling can cancel the noise from this in the first place and the few frequencies that they could cancel still would not protect your hearing.

How to lower your dB

Motorcyclists want lowered decibels certainly – but more than anything we want low-frequency road noise cut out (equivalent to the Bose product).

On a motorcycle, we need to cancel as much of the wind and road noise that we can. Decibels are measured on an algorithmic scale not linear, so every 3 dB is double the sound pressure.

85dB is where hearing loss starts and is acclimated and nonreversible. So 85-88 dB is double the sound pressure, 88-91 just doubled that. 91 to 94 is double again, so you can see how your organs can cook and ear’s bleed at 140+ dB.  So when you look at a Bose headset it is about 95dB in the airplane cabin, you put on the headset, and it reduces it about 25dB, and then you engage the noise-canceling feature. It did not reduce the dB level; it just canceled certain frequencies in an airplane, it’s like a magic trick. it works. 

Use them at home or in the car they don’t work the same as the frequencies are different. They do nothing about sound pressure reduction other than the seal from the earmuffs. So it’s a great technology but does not work or has no use in wind noise on a motorcycle. 

I had a friend that fastened them to his head with a strap, and they did not work at all at road speed, and this is not what they were not designed for. 

I do get this question all the time because Bose is such a good marketing company.

Motorcycle Helmets and

hearing protection

Helmet manufacturers do a dismal job of aural protection in the helmet product they sell.  Helmet manufacturers could develop in-helmet earcups that have active noise-cancellation.  Instead, the helmet manufacturers pander glitzy paint jobs and flutes for ventilation and “style.”  Us long-distance riders would pay good money for real active noise cancellation.  But since that does not exist, the next logical thing is in-ear molded products.

The best dB reduction helmet is 4dB and what you have learned is that 4dB removes at least 1 double of sound reduction, and there is mounting pressure to keep the class action lawsuits going as they represent them as hearing protection and they are not they are head protection and do not explain the limitations of hearing protection and allow hearing loss to occur while using the pretty helmet. Many helmets also cause massive extra noise and buffeting and noise. I deal with this all the time. When you do wear custom earplugs you get to hear other noises as the wind and road is reduced so now you hear the loudness of your helmet and windshield, mirrors and all the wing tip vortices cause by racing through the wind.

Active noise canceling does not work; that is why they do not do it. If it worked, they would do it and charge you $3,000 for the new super duper helmet.

Thus my last question would be:  is the noise cancellation referenced in your advertisements PASSIVE in nature, or ACTIVE in nature?

All our Noise Canceling Motorcycle Hearing Protection is Passive as this is all that works. We do have filtered hearing protection, but you really need to be careful and measure with a simple should level meter to see how loud it is the day your ridding. Are you in a headwind, side wind it all changes quickly and gets really loud fast?

As a suffer from Tinnitus, I do everything I can to protect my hearing from getting worse.

If you are using communication in your helmet or music, you must use a Noise Canceling Motorcycle Hearing Protection device that is earplugs first; then you can turn the sound down.

If you just try and jack the sound up over the wind, you are just accelerating the hearing loss situation.

Kevin, thank you for the thought and questions you have. If we can help further let us know.

Are you On a mission to find the Motorcycle Hearing Protection? Then you’ve come to the right place!

You will learn about the 3 kinds of earplugs that work best when riding your motorcycle.

1. Custom Full Stop Earplugs or Full Block motorcycle EarPlugs – Blocking out Max sound.
2. Custom Filtered motorcycle hearing protection – Allowing you to hear if you have speakers or want to hear the world around you
3. Custom Earphones  with the highest quality transducers in them allowing you to hear your tunes or communication.

You will be an expert by the end of this article.

It is written so if you already have a full understanding of what you want, and you can just skip to that section.

Where we come from (And why we know what the heck we’re talking about)

If you’re like most people, you didn’t wake up this morning thinking, “I’ve got to find some motorcycle earplugs.” It’s not something that’s on the forefront of our minds. And like most, we don’t reach for the phone or hit the keyboard(in 2019 we tap our phone screen) to find answers until the problem rears its head and we are in distress. 

How do I know this? it’s embarrassing to say but  I have been dealing with Tinnitus since 1987 when I took the antibiotic Floxin.

The antibiotic helped me  It healed me up, and I felt the best I had ever felt, however on the 4th day of the single daily dosage, when I was blowing off a part in my transmission shop  with compressed air with no hearing protection in, something popped and all the sudden a super sharp pure tone ringing started in my head and it hasn’t and will not ever stop until 6 minutes after I’m dead.

  I come from a lineage that believed if you cut your fingers off on Monday morning you get ducktape on em Monday afternoon and you get back to work on Monday evening. But Tinnitus is a different invisible pain and coupled with the hearing loss I had already experienced from a lifetime of hard labor building houses, running restaurants and owning the transmission shops I knew I had to do something about my problem.  In 2002 I took steps in the right direction.

I started wearing hearing protection during my everyday life. I tried foamies, triple flanges, wax plugs, and heat and mold hearing protection but I just couldn’t find something that would work for my ears.  In the search for the right product I tried many different kinds of products that were marketed as motorcycle hearing protection, but nothing worked, and they all drove my ears crazy.

My journey took me through into depths of the hearing protection industry, where I  faced the good the bad and the not so good some of which is finally coming to light nearly 20 years later. It bothered me that the information about hearing protection was relegated to only a select few and the rest of the world had to just deal with it. Eventually, I came across custom hearing protection and I had my very first set made by an old lion in the hearing protection industry, you can probably guess who. I realized that there was a place in the market for higher quality products that allow the end user to get a multidimensional product that allows them to be protected in many different places in their lives. So I developed our products accordingly and pushed the message of hearing conservation to the world, one person at a time. Now I must digress and state up front that I have major authority issues and I will always challenge the status quo. I started this company to create products that would add massive value to the end users life rather than the mediocre value that so many of my customers have had with generic one size fit all products. I don’t necessarily have an issue with generic earplugs, what I do have an issue with is if someone isn’t wearing them because they’re uncomfortable. And for a vast majority of humankind, generic earplugs DO NOT WORK! So the solutions you will find here have been crafted with your interest in mind. If I wanted to just take the money there are a lot easier things I could do than sell custom earplugs, however, I genuinely enjoy the look on someone’s face when I make a product that solves their problem and they say, “I love my Big Ears!” 

And as of recently I’ve had the immense fortune of looking back on the years we’ve been in business and have seen the impact we’ve had, and with the direction, Big Ear is moving, I’ve realized that we can also add value from the information that we put into the marketplace. So what you will also find on this site are resources to help you first understand how hearing damage occurs, how you can protect yourself against it, what product is right for you based on your lifestyle and finally we can deliver that product to you. I also have my cell-phone number on the website so you can get ahold of me any time.

I hope that sharing our information and products with you will help you find a solution much faster than I was able to. Thank you for visiting and I’m in the chat box to answer any questions you may add.

Here is a video that goes into great detail on a generic motorcycle hearing protection and their shortcomings.

If you already know then skip this.

Learn why a generic solution does not work on a motorcycle very well.

Here is an excellent, fully detailed blog on why a generic solution doesn’t work.

Now that we have established that there is no generic solution then you have a few choices, You can go to an audiologist and pay the Dr. Fee for an ear impression and then the high mark up because you bought it from a Dr office. The ear doc will have minimal knowledge about hearing protection because of the try and fix broken ears, not any prevention. 99% of them do not ride motorcycles, so they do not know what works and what does not.

This is why we’re here; we live in the motorcycle world and know what works.

We’re going to assume that you have either tried or have researched that only a Custom motorcycle hearing protection product will work. So this is what I will cover here.

So below are the 3 types of motorcycle hearing protection, so let’s see what is best for you.

1. Full Stop or Full Block Motorcycle hearing protection

1. Our Custom Made on Site at an event or show
2. Custom Lab motorcycle hearing protection
3. Super Soft motorcycle hearing protection

Custom Fit Motorcycle hearing protection, you can get them made a few different ways. You can see us at an event, and we make them on site, and you get them the same day.

Or we can make them from a set of impressions, and we can get them in many different ways. From a provider, an Ear Doc, a do it at home impression kit or hearing aid center. All we need is a set of impressions, and we can build you any lab motorcycle ear plug you like.

2. Filtered Motorcycle hearing protection 

The One Premium Series, With all the bells and whistles. Included are 4 sets of filters, one set of filter blocks, one tactical piece, and the filtered earplugs.

There are a few reasons to use a Custom Filtered motorcycle Ear Plug.

• You may have hearing damage and feel totally isolated when entirely blocked
• The need to ride in the city and hear everything around you as your splitting lanes in Cali
• Trying to listen to the Speakers in your helmet over the wind noise and not be muffled like a solid plug
• Riding a lot of mountains and need to be able to equalize easier

Whatever your reason we have created the Best Filtered Motorcycle Ear Plug that has ever made. 

It was so amazing we patented it.

It is a dual filter earplug… Heck, watch the video on it.

Now that you know about the one, you can decide if the filtered earplug is for you.

3. Motorcycle hearing protection With Stereo

At Big Ear, all of our products are hearing protection first then whatever you need second. When you need to have sound in your ears, then the only thing that will work is a transducer, (read about them).

There are different Price levels depending on the sound quality that you would want.

Here we are going to talk about our flagship motorcycle hearing protection unit with stereo because it is the most durable give’s you an excellent stereo reproduction directly into your ear so you can hear it perfectly.

It is designed to wear under your motorcycle helmet, be able to take on and off with little effort, and stay in place while you ride.

With an overall reduction of 32dB, you will reduce the wind and road noise and turn the volume up just enough to hear them perfectly without causing hearing damage.

They were originally designed to go 140 mph in the direct wind without a helmet and hear my tunes perfectly, and they did just that.

They are made by motorcyclists for motorcyclists.

Our BE-1 C’s.

Buying Cycle.

This allows you to Plug into your Phone, Sena, Sala, or most 3.5mm devices, turn the sound down as you are blocking out all the outside noise.

For more options on our higher end units get a look here.

I’m here to help!

Glenn