Muff with ear phones built in.

[Banshee]

Has anyone seen the muff with the radio built in that weed eater guys use?
Do the make helmets with muffs and built in radio, plus face shields.
I would love to have a helmet with a built in CD player.

 

[TimberMcPherson]

I run a petzl vertex with peltor work tunes that get FM/AM radio, the newer peltors have an input to plug in an mp3 player.

 

[BobL]

Muffs with built in phones mask the noise made by saws so while they might seem effective you can still be damaging your ears. I would never buy a set of phones unless they gave the dB Spec across a range of frequencies like you see on this Peltor spec. Good muffs will also state a dB tolerance for every attenuation, IMHO everything else are just toys.

 

[oldmar]

I have a set of Peltor Alert muffs, which have am/fm/mp3, but also have built-in stereo mics. The mic input is volume adjustable, and attenuates to a max of 82 db. For example, when I'm shooting, I can listen to everything around me, and even amplify the ambient sound, but any gunshots are capped to 82 db to protect my ears. They're great for sawing, because I can listen to the saw at a safe level, as well as hear everything around me when I throttle back. I would suggest using the radio only when doing tasks that don't require concentration, or that are less dangerous that running a chainsaw.

 

[BobL]

I have a set of Peltor Alert muffs, which have am/fm/mp3, but also have built-in stereo mics. The mic input is volume adjustable, and attenuates to a max of 82 db. For example, when I'm shooting, I can listen to everything around me, and even amplify the ambient sound, but any gunshots are capped to 82 db to protect my ears. They're great for sawing, because I can listen to the saw at a safe level, as well as hear everything around me when I throttle back. I would suggest using the radio only when doing tasks that don't require concentration, or that are less dangerous that running a chainsaw.

The real figure to look at on the "Alerts" is the 25 dB NRR rating. The "Attenuates to 82 dB" is a bit of a con which only applies to the electronic amplification - that means the signal that the mic picks up is limited to 82dB inside the muff.
BUT
If the gun is louder than 107 dB the 25 dB NRR cannot passively reduce the noise below 82 dB and the electronic amplification/attenuation matters ZILCH because the sound will pass right through the muffs. The 82 dB is a con started by cheap imports and everyone looks for the biggest number on a product don't they?

25 dB NRR is pretty average and they do not provide a dB spec across the range. Try something in the 10 series peltor if you really want to experience good ear protection. The human brain is a very poor judge of safe sound levels and the better your ear protection the longer you can keep it intact [says me who is legally deaf from too much 70's rock music ]

To protect my remaining hearing I use Peltor 10B (behind the head muffs) and ear plugs.

 

[oneoldbanjo]

I bought a set of the Peltor ear muffs with the digital radio in them. I pulled the ear muffs off my Stihl Helmet/Face Sheild and stuck the radio ear muffs on. I had to take a bit of the helmet strapping out to run the wires up through the helmet. The wire that the ear muffs slide on is just a bit smaller and the ear muffs are prone to sliding down after a while - so I may put a small bend in the wire to increase friction or just glue the sliders in the up position.

I don't turn the radio up very loud - just enough that I can hear it over the saw.

 

[kurtty]

i use just the standard peltor ear muffs.
i take my in ear phones from my MP3 player (high quality noise canceling in ear monitors) and put them in my ears before i put my peltor's on. it works great and kills even more noise then the peltors would alone.
no need for those fancy "work tunes" just use any in ear monitors.

 

[Nailgunner]

:agree2:

In-ear 'phones cut out a lot of noise. The plug-shaped ones are especially good.

 

[B_Turner]

To protect my remaining hearing I use Peltor 10B (behind the head muffs) and ear plugs.

+1 Moldex 6800 plugs with Peltor 10 series muffs. Best I've seen so far.

It a personal preference, but when I cut I want full attention on what I'm doing and the saw. I've had people say they don't wear hearing protection while chainsawing because they want to hear the saw better. In truth, hearing protection still passes through most mechanical sounds and I can still hear what the saw (or other machinery) is doing. And some mechnical sounds actually are easier to hear with hearing protection, as the sheer volume sometime masks certain sounds.

Something I have wondered about is how well really good active noise cancelling muffs would work with a chainsaw. I've tried cheap ones and they don't work well. I tried some good ones for flying at my brother's house and they were amazing with dust collectors, etc. Didn't try it with a chainsaw or a lawn tractor/mower which are my two noisiest activities.

 

[computeruser]

I can't imagine not having muffs with a radio in 'em. Seriously, for mowing the grass, blowing leaves, snowblowing, running the splitter, grinding chains, or other lower-risk activities, why not? For felling hazard trees, yeah, turn the radio off. But for most everything else...

 

[Brmorgan]

I used to wear headphone earmuffs hooked up to a radio or Discman while I was doing cleanup in high school at a local mill. Until my supervisor found out, anyway. I was never told they were a problem beforehand, but apparently WCB won't allow them because you can no longer hear ambient sounds that you should, such as a forklift backing up or a saw starting.

I personally HATE wearing muffs while milling though, especially in the summer. Same goes for a dustmask, though that one's a little more important. I generally just wear a set of those E.A.R. yellow rubber tree-shaped plugs with the blue cord between them. I won't wear plugs + muffs at all because, as noted above, I can't hear the saw enough. When milling I like to really be able to listen to the engine so I can hear if I'm starting to bog the engine down and correct it before it actually slows the chain too much.

 

[BobL]

I spoke to an acoustican at work today and he reckons using muffs with radios in them while operating noisy machinery is one way to seriously damage your hearing. Even the very best muffs let some sound from saws thru so you have to turn up the radio more than necessary to hear it, so even though it does not sound loud it is. To add to the problem radios are put into Muffs that usually only have NRR values of around 25dB, the best muffs have NRRs of ~40 dB at 1 KHz. If you do use these you should set the sound level with the Saw off and if you have to turn it up hear the radio over the saw look for a different set.

 

[Rookie1]

Check this out http://www.arboristsite.com/showthread.php?t=77449&highlight=peltor

 

[dancan]

When I run my chipper I wear earplugs and muffs together , I can still hear when motor starts to slow down .
I don't like to run any noisy equipment without ear protection .

 

[Wild Knight]

CD player? Why not shoot for an 8 track helmet unit?

 

[B_Turner]

I can still hear when motor starts to slow down .
I don't like to run any noisy equipment without ear protection .

+1

I run moldex 6800 foam plugs (33 nrr) and peltor 10a (30 nrr) muffs when I cut. I can still hear the mechanical quality of the cutting and motor fine. But at low volume.

Takes less toll on me than just muffs. Biggest problem is when I have to talk to someone I have to lift muffs and pull a plug. And the plugs get dirty from my hands and don't work as well.

I would be curious to try a top quality noise cancelling muff while sawing. I tried my brother's high end aviation muffs once with various equipment and I was impressed. Didn't think to try it with a saw while I was there.

Course those muffs were prohibitively expensive, more than a small saw.

 

[slowp]

I should think you'd want to be one with the saw, which takes total concentration, and not have music. Even with earplugs in, and Twinkle going full bore, I can still hear/feel a log thunking while bucking it up. I like hearing that, it makes me think about things like, What could be going on? Is the log doing what I anticipated? Did I misjudge the compression and is the log going to launch itself in the air and scare me? Is it time to pull Twinkle out and quickly get out of the way? Music would interfere with my Saw Meditation for which if I really want it to be intense, coffeeing up before bucking up is a good thing.