Then I stumbled over an advert for Ear Peace plugs, made from soft silicone with 'filters' for different noise attenuation levels. The big thing for me though was that the tab is soft silicone as well, so shouldn't get pulled around putting on a helmet.
I was heading for France so I ordered a set thinking that a 1700 mile test would be good enough.
The ear plugs arrived well packaged with a nicely machined alloy storage cylinder with two compartments, one large section for the plugs in use and a smaller section for the supplied spare third plug - a nice touch.
The earplugs arrived with red 'filters' fitted, the medium level of attenuation, so I decided to try them as delivered. Also included are two other sets of filters, clear for the lowest level of attenuation and black for the highest level of attenuation.
Low and high level attenuation 'filters' |
Again these are supplied in threes, so you can set the spare plug to match the ones in use.
The plugs go in to the ear easily to the correct depth by holding the tab and keeping it to the top, as per the instructions, and felt comfy in the ear from the start. So onto the bike for the first 100 mile stint.
The red 'filters' seemed to reduce the wind noise to about the same level as the foam plugs I use. They also changed the nature of the wind noise, taking out a lot of the higher frequency noise leaving a calmer bass-ier type of noise. They also reduced the exhaust noise quite a bit, but the engine is slightly louder. Personally I like it this way round.
Turning on the music from my Scala, I immediately had to turn the volume down. Hopefully a good sign that voices would be easier to hear, this was backed up as sat nav direction started to come through the Scala as well.
After 100 miles I still could not feel the Ear Peace plugs in my ears as I pulled into a petrol station. After fuelling the bike I wandered in to pay and I could hear the sales person just fine, brilliant!
I continued to use the Ear Peace plugs for the next 1600 miles around France and they continued to work flawlessly. Easy to put in and pull out thanks to the well designed and soft tab. All day comfy and they didn't irritate my ears at all. I think this is due to the 'filters' allowing air to by-pass the plug and let your ears breathe.
5 Stars from me and well worth £16 for the comfort alone.
I purchased mine direct from the manufacturer at Ear Peace