It is no secret that prolonged exposure to loud sound is highly damaging to our hearing. Listening to loud music is one of the common factors leading to degraded hearing ability and tinnitus, and is deeply unhealthy.
At the same time, such level of noise negatively impacts the quality of sound perception, which degrades the musical side of the musical performance.
In what seems to be the echoes of the so-called “loudness war”, bands still stick to the idea that “the louder you blast it - the better”. But it’s not true. There are many other ways to energize the crowd without causing them sound damage, and I’d love to see more of those, instead of them trying to be the loudest ever.
Allow me to piggyback on to this post:
If you ride a motorcycle, you should be wearing earplugs. It’s not the engine noise, it’s the wind noise, even inside a good helmet. Yes, you will still be able to use your helmet intercom/headset. I recommend the silicone ear plugs with the tiny hard plastic insert, both for comfort (because they sit very flush) and headset (I can hear my headset perfectly).
Earplugs will actually significantly improve your experience. It’s much easier to hear everything without the constant wind noise.
When I used “regular” foam earplugs, I could only really use the headset under 70MPH. With the “filtered” ones, I can use it at literally any speed.
I also bought a bag of 1000 solid silicone earplugs with string tethers, mainly to throw at my son and his musician friends playing hardcore in the basement, but also to keep some with me on the bike all the time and hand them out to anyone who needs them.
If I stick my watch arm out the window while driving, my watch warns me that I’m in a loud environment that could damage my hearing.
To be fair your car is concentrating a lot of wind right outside the window so it will artificially read higher. Plus your ears are like 80 degrees away from the wind flow vs your watches mic that’s probably getting fucked by the wind. If you ever stick your head out the window ear facing forward that shits LOUD.
Even with my watch inside the car when I’m driving my little Miata with the top down my watch gives me the loud noise notification. Granted I do also have my speakers turned up pretty loud to hear anything over the wind.
That’s my point, wind is loud
I’m not a motorcycle driver, but doesn’t it lessen your situational awareness? Genuine question.
In my experience, you situational awareness is better, because all sounds are turned down, you can still hear everything, it’s just not as loud. Most of these attenuate the frequencies where the wind noise is more than the rest, which also helps.
The main reason why I say your awareness is better though, is that you have less fatigue when you aren’t constantly exposed to loud noise while riding, again in my experience.
The helmet you have also makes a huge difference, just like the bike. On a naked bike you’ll have more wind noise, whereas on a touring bike with a large windscreen, it’s mainly engine noise.
I second this. It’s absolutely nerve wracking to have that wind blasting while riding. With ear plugs there’s a feeling of calm combined with the joy of riding that can not be put into words. Damn I need to get another bike. I could use some of that in my life right now.
Yes, and it’s mostly the wind noise, because on my electric motorcycle I need them more than on my large touring bike with superb wind protection.
Thanks for sharing your experience!
They got that all correct, for sure. I already have tinnitus, so extended wind noise aggravates that, and loud sounds tend to get mentally overwhelming for me. Earplugs resolve both of those problems, and are just a necessity.
I will also add that riding a motorcycle is primarily about situational awareness. When you’re going any speed above running pace, scenery is speeding past, the road is right there with nothing in between it and you, wind rushing - the lizard brain goes “pay fucking attention!” The same thing in a car, you have a bubble around you which is stationary in relation to your person, and your lizard brain is not triggered to pay attention in quite the same way.
This gets into some funny spaces. Your ears can only handle “so loud” before things start going weird. Muscles start tensing up to attenuate the noise. The shape of your ear canals will funnel sound so your hairs in your inner ear stop hearing and just report noise.
Turning down the overall volume, lets you hear more, because more of the sound is in your range of acceptable volumes. I’m more aware of what’s going on with earplugs in, because I’m able to hear things like the tire noise of a nearby car, or the cooling fans of a semi.
This is the same reason wearing earplugs at concerts makes the music sound better. :-)
I see! Makes perfect sense
I know it’s illegal to wear headphones with music while driving. Wonder if earplugs also?
It’s different for motorcycles, since your head is in the wind.
As for wearing headphones while driving a car (in the US), it depends on the state, and most states have no prohibition on it.
https://www.vlaw.com/is-it-illegal-to-wear-headphones-while-driving/
Not a lot of information about earplugs, but I did find this:
https://www.thewisedrive.com/driving-with-earplugs/
I can definitely see where wearing earplugs while driving a car could be problematic, because you can roll the windows up, and I would expect that your ability to hear emergency vehicles would be hampered while wearing earplugs in a closed car.
On the other hand, hearing impaired people - including those who are wholly deaf - drive legally all the time, so I’m not entirely sure where earplugs would land.
In other news, in most states it is perfectly legal to drive naked as long as you’re not exposing yourself to minors. This includes not wearing shoes.
In Illinois it’s law you need to be wearing shoes. I’ve never seen it enforced, but it’s in the handbook. Being naked can be considered public indecency depending on a few other factors.
I am obliged to correct that.
I’m feeling this one today. I had to ride about 25 miles to an appointment this morning, but as I pulled onto the main road, a 70 mph dual carriageway, I realised that I had forgotten my earplugs. It’s been about an hour, and my ears still don’t feel right.
If you ride a motorcycle, you should stop.
If we’re talking about the kind of bikes that are so loud you can hear them from 5 blocks away, god yes. I wish severe harm on every selfish tryhard fuckwit that drives one.
Motorcycles with a proper muffler on them can stay though.
Using mainly the front brake with my right hand, yes.
Is your bike electric? If not, you’re too loud.
Loudest vehicles in my neighborhood are all the cars with the catalysts cut out of them. And because they’re so slow, they’re around SO MUCH LONGER.
Bikes aren’t loud. People who want loud bikes are loud.
Did you know that most road noise is tire noise? Those sound abatement walls along highways are to deal with YOUR car’s tire noise, not engine noise.
Tires don’t make any significant noise below 30 km/h. This is why electric cars must emit a fake engine noise, for pedestrian safety. In a city, motorbikes are BY FAR the number one source of noise pollution. They can be heard up to a kilometer away, and can cover the sound of people talking inside of a building.
Bikes ARE loud. This is a fact denied only by bikers, who all have their eardrums damaged by their engine.
That doesn’t jive with anything described in this thread. We wear earplugs, because they are noisy “to us”. Bikes all meet certain volume limits from the factory. So do cars. (they are in fact often the same levels…) You have bikes on the brain, think any high reving, 4 cylinder is a bike, and are happy to point your finger at it. But you also… aren’t hearing the dozens, hundreds, of other bikes that are going by.
A honda S2000, any Civic type r from before 2020, are going to make some very similar noises if some jerk decides noise is better than enjoying your drive. I strongly suspect you’re blaming bikes for wankers with $50 tesco cherry bombs on their panda.
Just a kilometer? Look, I’m 3km from a major highway. And 2km from two different rail yards. I can hear anything with a missing muffler, and I hear trains at high idle every day. The fact you think it’s “just” 1km for the jerks? that also shows you just don’t know the subject.
I have several decades on my ears. “I” am the one who hears the things. Case in point, some dropped pixel 3 earbuds were on the ground, and the only one who could hear the music playing was me. And “I” am the one with the noisy hobbys. I protect my ears. Honestly, it sounds a bit like YOU may have some hearing damage? Do you keep a fan on in your bedroom at night? is it one of the 10" or smaller ones?
I get wanting quiet. But I also think your calibration is off.
I’m less than 300m away from a highway at this very moment and can barely hear it. It’s sound is covered by people talking in the office. 1km inside a city is a lot. Cars are barely audible from 30m away. This is not a problem with my hearing. I often cycle on the road that’s next to the highway, the only sound barrier being trees, and I can hear the woosh woosh sound of car tires but not their engines. Unlike bikes.
Bike and car engine sounds are easy to tell apart. Loud cars are usually VW Golfs or BMWs used by assholes, and they are somewhat rare and quieter than any random bike.
Here in France, the noise limit for bikes is higher than that for cars, and Harley Davidson have a special exemption to be allowed to go up to 97dB. Bikers always insist that their bike is silent, yet on neutral without acceleration, they are consistently louder than cars accelerating.
You’re showing signs of profound hearing loss in the mid and high ranges. You really should get your ears checked. For real. This is outside the complaint you’re making.
What you’re not hearing, are the thousands of 250 -500cc learner bikes. Those yamaha FZ6’s, Honda Transalps, ST1300s, BMW GS’s, K and R series, even the wild high end sportbikes are quite quiet at mild power levels.
My personal bikes? all have stock exhausts. They’re less noisy than my idling Jeep Cherokee, and it too, is dead stock. (though it is a very loud machine at idle) “I” am not the problem.
“The motorcycles I can hear are loud, so all of them must be loud!”
Motorcycles are disproportionately more likely to be the source of loud, annoying engine noises, even though there are more cars than motorbikes. Loud cars are very rare, and are still quieter than any motorcycle.
They are not very rare, loud cars, that is. Harleys… maybe… but that’s a story on it’s own.
Actually, I’m now quite convinced you have profound hearing loss. If the ONLY big noise you hear day to day, is motorcycle engines, I think you’re missing a lot of the soundscape. I’d be willing to bet you have some real loss in the high and midranges. Get it checked out, if that’s the case, you’re going to need to protect what you have left.
So are you.