My Quest for the Perfect Ear Plugs

When I bought the Caterham, ear protection was one of the first things I needed to address, and I was able to do that easily enough by acquiring a pair of noise-blocking headphones with boom mics for both myself and my passenger to communicate (similar to what aircraft pilots use). However, when it comes to riding a motorcycle your options are more limited thanks to that big ol' helmet thing you need to wear so that you don't die when you inevitably fall over.

I am, of course, far from the first person to have to figure this problem out, so you'd think the answer would be plainly obvious and straightforward... and it is. There are a TON of available products on the market, and plenty of them work just fine for most folks... but as is seemingly always the case with anything I do, it took me several purchases of various products before I found something that fully satisfied my needs. So I wanted to walk through the various solutions I tried, and explain how and why I wound up with what I have now. Who knows; it may help inform someone else's decision of what to try down the road...

Experiment #1: Foam Ear Plugs - $5

No need to overcomplicate things, right? For many folks, this is actually the simplest and easiest solution that works "just fine." Buy a giant box of these things for like $5, and move on with your life. However, all my life I've never been able to get these things to work for me. No matter how much I roll and squish them down, they never fit right and always fall out. I did give them another try for the motorcycle, but the helmet just exacerbated things by disturbing their placement and causing them to fall out even more quickly. So I moved on in search of something better.

Experiment #2: Westone DefendEar Plugs - $250

After a lot of Googling I stumbled across the recommendation of getting custom-molded musician ear plugs from a local audiologist. The idea being since they're custom-molded to your ear they will be extremely comfortable, and provide even better noise isolation. Additionally, you can swap out the filter inserts to customize how much sound reduction you want depending on the scenario. (So you could use them at, say, a concert with a "weaker" filter, or at an NHRA drag strip with the solid plug for maximum protection.)

Since we have an audiologist literally right around the block, I figured why not bite the bullet. While I felt silly walking into an office filled with old people shouting over their hearing aids, when it came time for my appointment, the audiologist actually asked which biker group I was with. She said what usually happens is one person in a group decides to get custom-molded plugs, and they typically wind up liking and bragging about them so much that all their friends usually follow-suit. Sounded promising!

The first step in getting your plugs is to get a set of impressions made, which cost me $50. The audiologist uses some tweezers to push a tiny ball of cotton into your ear canal (to act as a stopper), and then uses a syringe to jam a bunch of foam goop stuff into your ear. Not painful or anything; just a weird feeling. Then you sit there for 5 minutes while it semi-hardens before it gets yoinked out as a full impression.

It was at this point, while looking at my impressions, that she said, "Let me guess. Normal ear buds and plugs tend to fall out of your ears, right?" OH MY GOD, THIS WOMAN UNDERSTANDS ME. "YES! All my life I've HATED wearing even regular ear buds because they never sat in my ear properly," I exclaimed. Turns out I just have really narrow ear canals, and so she assured me that custom molding was going to solve all of my problems.

After getting the impressions done, I waited 2-3 weeks to receive my actual plugs from Westone. Initially, I simply could not get the left plug into my ear no matter how hard I tried (or how much hearing aid lube I applied.) Since my ear canal gets extremely narrow in the middle, if the tip of the plug is too wide, it simply wont be able to squeeze through. In the end, Westone re-made my left plug with a narrower tip. I then had a pair of plugs with replaceable / swappable filter inserts that fit my ears comfortably. And so I thought I had found the ultimate solution...

...until I put my helmet on. These ear plugs sit relatively flush with your ears, but the swappable filters poke out a bit, and they simply wouldn't clear the Cardo speakers I'd installed in my Arai helmet. They would crush up against them which not only created awful noises every time my helmet moved, but also resulted in quite a lot of discomfort after more than just a few minutes of riding. So I continued my search.

Experiment #3: Etymotic Musician Ear Plugs - $250

After a lot more Googling, I found that a commonly-recommended brand in many motorcycle discussions was Etymotic. Unlike my Westones, the swappable filter inserts appeared to sit flush with the surface of the Etymotic plug. So off I went again to the audiologist for another $50 set of impressions, followed once again by a $200 order for the Etymotics.

Upon receipt, they definitely seemed promising. The fit under the helmet was vastly improved, however they STILL rubbed slightly against the speakers. I do believe this might be more to do with the fact that I have rather pokey ears than anything else, and that for many folks this might not necessarily be an issue. I also have the larger 45mm Cardo drivers, and I'm not sure if those are thicker than the smaller 40mm ones. However, there was a larger issue... The depression into which you slot the swappable filters was malformed on both earpieces. Rather than a full circle, it was most of a circle, and then a flat section. This prevented the filter from being properly inserted, and that meant that often times after just a few minutes of riding, the filter would suddenly pop out under my helmet and I'd have to pull over, take my helmet off, find the filter, and pop it back into place. I can understand the odd manufacturing error, but the fact that both earpieces suffered from this problem (one more than the other) made me slightly suspicious that this was a chronic problem. I wound up sanding down the inserts on one side which helped them seat better when clocked correctly, and that prevented them from popping out as readily, but I still wrote to Etymotic with my issue. To their credit, they sent me another pair for free with significantly improved depressions, but the flat spot was still there, if not nearly as pronounced.

Interestingly, I no longer see any custom-molded options available on their site, so I'm wondering if they decided to move away from that service entirely. I am curious if this problem was one of the reasons why... In any case, between that, and the fact that they still rubbed slightly on the earpieces in the helmet, my search continued.

Experiment #4: Ultimate Ear SoundEar Pro - $450

At this point, it seemed I wasn't going to be able to find something that would comfortably fit between my ears and the Cardo speakers, and so I decided to go a slightly different route and acquire a set of custom-molded in ear monitors (IEMs). There are several companies that offer these services, but I wound up going with Ultimate Ear, which is located overseas in the UK. Specifically, I opted for the SoundEar Pro, which was advertised as having dual drivers for better bass response. Yet again, I went and had a $50 set of impressions done. (Etymotic had actually returned my impressions to me, but for these IEMs, the impression needed to include the entirety of the ear's concha, and so I needed to have a more thorough mold made.) When they arrived, I reconfigured my helmet by removing the Cardo speakers entirely, and untucking the wire so that it hangs down by about 6 inches. I can simply plug the IEMs into the helmet after I slip it on. You can see how much larger these units are, as they are designed not only to insert into your ear canal as usual, but also to fill out the entirety of your concha, which means the larger section actually "snaps" into the space in your ear. It is a REALLY satisfying fit. This was the first time I felt like I truly had a product customized for my exact ear.

In the end, the left earpiece seems to have been molded just a hair too large, and caused me discomfort after wearing for more than 15 minutes, but their customer service was fantastic, and they simply had me mail the IEMs back to them in the UK, where they made some minor tweaks, and mailed it back to me, all within two weeks.

The end result? I LOVE these things. They fit perfectly, and are extremely comfortable to wear. They are a much softer and more flexible silicone than the others. They don't interfere with the helmet at ALL, and don't get yanked out when putting the helmet on or taking it off. They block WAY more noise than the other plugs did (yes you can still hear sirens), and I went from having my Cardo set to almost full volume, to literally needing to have it on the lowest possible volume setting most of the time when listening to music. Audio is crisp and clear, though if I have one complaint it's that bass response, even with the dual drivers, is lacking. I had to set the Cardo to "Bass Boost" mode just to get some bass, but it still isn't what I would consider great bass.

They certainly aren't cheap, but they are a joy to ride with, and I would happily recommend them to anyone looking for a custom-fitted IEM that isn't a pain-in-the-butt to wear with a helmet!