Close enough, yeah. Just wet 'em and stick em' in.
My high freq. hearing is terrible and I also have a substantial amount of mid-range loss. I believe I have tinnitus but with me, it is not a ringing but rather a very steady "hiss" noise, just like white noise or radio static. The really odd thing is that given such substantial hearing loss, any amount of exposure over a couple of minutes now causes me quite a bit of discomfort.... I would have thought being 1/2 deaf would make me twice as impervious but not so.
As it applied to motorcycling, it is illegal in many states to wear ear plugs while riding, including the state I live in. But even wearing a full- face helmet, behind a tall and effective windshield, and riding a relatively very quiet bike, the constant background noise is annoying, distracting, uncomfortable and very unpleasant. So I wear ear plugs whenever riding and will deal with the legality of the issue if and when I have to but in the meantime, it is the only way I can ride with any comfort. And by the way, I find I can hear sounds better after having worn ear plugs for, say, an hour, than I can if I do not- my hearing seems to deteriorate from the constant background noise.
And now for the humor: I worked in an extremely high- noise environment for several years some years ago. Steady- state background noise exceeding 105 Db, actually painful after a short while of exposure. Everyone wore hearing protection, some plugs, some earmuffs, some both. One day I happen to see a co- worker digging pretty rigorously in one ear clearly trying to recover an earplug. Then he reached into his pocket, took out his Swiss army knife, opened the corkscrew attachment and used the end of that to hook the earplug and dig it out.... hysterical to see that. Another time watched the same guy walk into the office (sound proof, low ambient noise level), pull out one ear plug and then seeming to drive the other one IN DEEPER aggressively, while twisting his finger. Then he walked over to a trash can and spat out an earplug saying 'sometimes they are just in too deep to pull them back out'. He was a funny guy a lot of the time.....
Brian
P.S. Short on time so you folks are going to have to put your own 'Easy Boys'! wherever needed in this post.
In other words quick rivets for the ears