Tinnitus has been creeping up on me for a long time.
It’s due in part to having spent more than a few years working in factories. But I chalk this malady up mainly to noisy hobbies: 2-stoke dirt bikes when I was a kid, and later the wind noise from riding high-speed street bikes, which for many years was unabated by earplugs. Listening to rock music since junior high hasn't helped, nor did my membership as bassist in various bands where "We're not done til the cops come" seemed to be the motto.
And yes, of course my amp goes to 11.
For many years the effect on my hearing has been a constant but relatively unobtrusive ringing in my ears. It was generally noticeable only when everything else was quiet, or in the aftermath of rides or rock shows where even the use of earplugs fails to reduce noise to less than damaging levels. The tinnitus would then be, for a time, much more pronounced.
But a couple years ago I noted a substantial increase in both the persistence and intrusiveness of the ringing, and there was no question riding exacerbated it. I wondered if I faced a choice between quitting riding or going deaf.
It occurred to me the solution might be active noise cancellation, which has finally become a thing. I bought a Bose earbud rig and found that while it was indeed far more effective than even the custom-molded earplugs I've been using since 2013, it still wasn’t a practical solution. The problem was it was virtually impossible to put my helmet on without dislodging the earbuds. Even if I managed to keep everything in place while donning my helmet, the padding’s pressure on the buds made the experience excruciating on a long ride – at the end of which I could look forward to the buds being painfully ripped from my ears when I took my helmet off.
But I just bought a new helmet and the first thing I noticed is it fits differently. I wondered if I might be able to use the Bose system now.
This morning I put it to the test, and indeed the pads slide easily over the earbuds. The helmet’s designed to facilitate installation of a Bluetooth communication system, so there’s open space for speakers above the ears, and thus no constant squeezing on the buds.
On the first leg of a short test ride I simply switched on the active noise cancellation, and relished the comfortable and noticeably quieter ride.
It’s the most significant step ever toward fending off more of the hearing damage that’s been stalking me all these years.
On the way back home I plugged in my iPod.
This was something I’d tried to do with a Sony Walkman back in the early 80s. But between the inability of those earbuds to successfully filter wind noise, and the tape player’s inability to deal with the environment, the experiment was a total failure; I never accomplished a sound quality that made it worth the effort.
Today the bulky and power-hungry Walkman is history; now a device barely bigger than a postage stamp will play music all day and never miss a beat no matter how rough the road. And the earbuds don’t simply filter out the wind noise, they actively eliminate it to a significant degree.
I realize I’m coming late to this party. Motorcyclists have been enjoying tunes while they ride for years – although many of the “solutions” I’ve seen are as unacceptable to me as the Walkman was.
But this morning, for the first time ever, I was able to fully enjoy music while riding.
This is going to be huge next month, when I’ll once again ride across the great plains.
I’m already thinking about the playlists I need to build.
First, about half a dozen repeats of Flying in a Blue Dream by Joe Satriani. There’s no better tune to punch up at the bottom of a freeway on-ramp at the launch of an epic cross-country trip.
Then… the first three tracks from The Joshua Tree.
Then… whatever else I can cram into the whopping 1GB of my ten year old iPod Shuffle.
It’s due in part to having spent more than a few years working in factories. But I chalk this malady up mainly to noisy hobbies: 2-stoke dirt bikes when I was a kid, and later the wind noise from riding high-speed street bikes, which for many years was unabated by earplugs. Listening to rock music since junior high hasn't helped, nor did my membership as bassist in various bands where "We're not done til the cops come" seemed to be the motto.
And yes, of course my amp goes to 11.
For many years the effect on my hearing has been a constant but relatively unobtrusive ringing in my ears. It was generally noticeable only when everything else was quiet, or in the aftermath of rides or rock shows where even the use of earplugs fails to reduce noise to less than damaging levels. The tinnitus would then be, for a time, much more pronounced.
But a couple years ago I noted a substantial increase in both the persistence and intrusiveness of the ringing, and there was no question riding exacerbated it. I wondered if I faced a choice between quitting riding or going deaf.
It occurred to me the solution might be active noise cancellation, which has finally become a thing. I bought a Bose earbud rig and found that while it was indeed far more effective than even the custom-molded earplugs I've been using since 2013, it still wasn’t a practical solution. The problem was it was virtually impossible to put my helmet on without dislodging the earbuds. Even if I managed to keep everything in place while donning my helmet, the padding’s pressure on the buds made the experience excruciating on a long ride – at the end of which I could look forward to the buds being painfully ripped from my ears when I took my helmet off.
But I just bought a new helmet and the first thing I noticed is it fits differently. I wondered if I might be able to use the Bose system now.
This morning I put it to the test, and indeed the pads slide easily over the earbuds. The helmet’s designed to facilitate installation of a Bluetooth communication system, so there’s open space for speakers above the ears, and thus no constant squeezing on the buds.
On the first leg of a short test ride I simply switched on the active noise cancellation, and relished the comfortable and noticeably quieter ride.
It’s the most significant step ever toward fending off more of the hearing damage that’s been stalking me all these years.
On the way back home I plugged in my iPod.
This was something I’d tried to do with a Sony Walkman back in the early 80s. But between the inability of those earbuds to successfully filter wind noise, and the tape player’s inability to deal with the environment, the experiment was a total failure; I never accomplished a sound quality that made it worth the effort.
Today the bulky and power-hungry Walkman is history; now a device barely bigger than a postage stamp will play music all day and never miss a beat no matter how rough the road. And the earbuds don’t simply filter out the wind noise, they actively eliminate it to a significant degree.
I realize I’m coming late to this party. Motorcyclists have been enjoying tunes while they ride for years – although many of the “solutions” I’ve seen are as unacceptable to me as the Walkman was.
But this morning, for the first time ever, I was able to fully enjoy music while riding.
This is going to be huge next month, when I’ll once again ride across the great plains.
I’m already thinking about the playlists I need to build.
First, about half a dozen repeats of Flying in a Blue Dream by Joe Satriani. There’s no better tune to punch up at the bottom of a freeway on-ramp at the launch of an epic cross-country trip.
Then… the first three tracks from The Joshua Tree.
Then… whatever else I can cram into the whopping 1GB of my ten year old iPod Shuffle.
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