2 New Reviews Posted

[MikeRivers]

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TASCAM DR-40 Hand Held Recorder

Etymotic MusicPRO active ear plugs.

[Jorge7]

Thanks, Mike. Very nice review of the Etymotic MusicPro active earplugs. A few questions not answered in the FAQ on the Etymotic website, how well can you understand conversation when there is loud background sound? I have the Etymotic (passive) Musicians' Earplugs 9 dB and often have to pull one out to hear someone saying something to me at a gig. Does the compressor help that problem or make it worse? Also, I imagine these earplugs could make it easier to hear pitch and timing cues when playing or singing with the earplugs in. Any thoughts on that?

[MikeRivers]

Originally Posted by Jorge7

A few questions not answered in the FAQ on the Etymotic website, how well can you understand conversation when there is loud background sound? I have the Etymotic (passive) Musicians' Earplugs 9 dB and often have to pull one out to hear someone saying something to me at a gig.

Very good question, and I wish I had a good answer for you. When I walk through the aisles at the NAMM show where all the drums and basses are, I usually put in my $15 ETTY ear plugs and get out of there as fast as possible. I was able to hold a reasonable conversation with those, but one thing that I found was that people had a hard time hearing me. I don't know if that was because I was talking softer because of the way I heard myself with the ear plugs in, or if they just couldn't hear anything because they were around the loud noise all day. The AES show isn't noisy like that so I didn't have a good chance to do that test when I got them, but if Etymotic doesn't repossess them before NAMM, I'll try them there.

Does the compressor help that problem or make it worse? Also, I imagine these earplugs could make it easier to hear pitch and timing cues when playing or singing with the earplugs in. Any thoughts on that?

The compressor really isn't much of a compressor, it's just to get the 15 dB of loss gradually over a range of ambient level rather than blocking out 15 dB of everything. But if you're in a place that's loud enough so the compressor is working, you have gain reduction of everything. In the 9 dB mode where you have a little gain, it's slightly less like having ear plugs in when you don't really need them at all.

They might help to hear pitch if you're trying ot sing against something pretty loud, but really, just because of the attenuation. I find that when people get too "pitchy" in the studio, if I lower their headphone volume, they usually stay on pitch better.

If you have a credit card with $400 left on it after Christmas shopping, why don't you take advantage of their 30 day risk-free trial offer? That's the best way to tell how they do in the environment that you're working in.

[Jorge7]

Thanks, Mike. I think it is hard to answer all the important questions without a first hand trial. Etymotic extended the trial offer until Jan 15 so that gives us a little more time to decide to do the trial.