Amazing hearing protection - Bose 30 earphones

[jedd_imp]

I bought these last week to use on a 6 day bike ride.


Before this, I was using foam earplugs in conjunction w/ my Sena S20 communicators w/ external speakers velcro'd inside my Arai Full face as well as my Arai dual sport helmets. THe earplugs blocked out alot of the wind noise, but it also blocked out 90% of the music and GPS/cell phone/ voice commands that I depend on anytime I ride.

And before that I was using a $40 motorcycle wired earbuds by plugphones.


IT protruded too far outward from my ears, and so made it painful to wear underneath both my helmets. Also, it never stayed put inside my ears, and by the 2nd hr, it would leak in huge amounts of wind noise.

well, this Bose 30 is a new twist on an existing Bose 20 wired product, now in wireless/bluetooth form. Let me just say that the latest active noise cancelling from Bose is THE BEST system to date. This is coming from someone who still uses the Bose QC15 and QC30 noise cancelling headphones at home.

My gosh, they fit close enough to the ears that I wore them all day long under my helmet, 8 hrs long, and could not hear any wind noise whatsoever doing 90 mph for long stretches of pavement. My music no longer needs to be on full blast;it's barely 1/4 volume and the best part is I can actually hear the entire sound spectrum, vs a muffled midrange bandwidth w/ my former setup w/ earplugs & Sena S20.

When I get a phone call, the bose 30 voices out the phone number received. So I no longer need to stop what I'm doing, reach and look at my phone to see what number is calling me. That's a new feature that none of my headsets provided.

The built in battery lasts at least 8-10 hrs, and most of the juice is used to create the noise cancelling. you can easily increase/decrease noise cancelling to set your preferences on the fly. And it takes 2 hrs to charge via mini USB from 0% to 100%.

 

[Capo]

Question for those who might know...does 'noise canceling' have the same protective effect as blocking the noise via earplugs? Or does it just trick you into not hearing the noise while the ear drums still get bombarded?

 

[Rolls_imp]

Good question. Same protective effect.

 

[jedd_imp]

THe way I see it is, in order to hear, the eardrum must be able to vibrate according to the waves it receives. With noise cancellers, the unwanted incoming waves get stopped/cancelled out by the unit before the waves can get to my eardrums to cause any damage and/or strain.

It's like fighting fire with fire to protect your home from destruction.

 

[Ulvetanna_imp]

Question for those who might know...does 'noise canceling' have the same protective effect as blocking the noise via earplugs? Or does it just trick you into not hearing the noise while the ear drums still get bombarded?

Reverses the phase of the frequency which is coming from outside the earbud/phone. Completely cancels the energy of that frequency.

Very effective. You will NOT hear any vehicles approaching you. Those pesky sirens you'd hear when the fire trucks are bearing down on you to save your home burning to the ground won't interrupt the reveries of sweet, sweet music.

I am sure y'all gather I am not a fan of blocking the hearing in this way. Attenuation, not cancellation, is what we want. Not being able to hear emergency vehicles or other important ambient sounds, not good.

Noise cancelling is not legal, but soft earplugs are OK in CA now, though. I've never had any problem hearing emergency vehicles with these in my ears.

 

[Capo]

Question for those who might know...does 'noise canceling' have the same protective effect as blocking the noise via earplugs? Or does it just trick you into not hearing the noise while the ear drums still get bombarded?

Reverses the phase of the frequency which is coming from outside the earbud/phone. Completely cancels the energy of that frequency.

Very effective. You will NOT hear any vehicles approaching you. Those pesky sirens you'd hear when the fire trucks are bearing down on you to save your home burning to the ground won't interrupt the reveries of sweet, sweet music.

I am sure y'all gather I am not a fan of blocking the hearing in this way. Attenuation, not cancellation, is what we want. Not being able to hear emergency vehicles or other important ambient sounds, not good.

Noise cancelling is not legal, but soft earplugs are OK in CA now, though. I've never had any problem hearing emergency vehicles with these in my ears.

Reverses the phase of the frequency which is coming from outside the earbud/phone. Completely cancels the energy of that frequency.

Very effective. You will NOT hear any vehicles approaching you. Those pesky sirens you'd hear when the fire trucks are bearing down on you to save your home burning to the ground won't interrupt the reveries of sweet, sweet music.

I am sure y'all gather I am not a fan of blocking the hearing in this way. Attenuation, not cancellation, is what we want. Not being able to hear emergency vehicles or other important ambient sounds, not good.

Noise cancelling is not legal, but soft earplugs are OK in CA now, though. I've never had any problem hearing emergency vehicles with these in my ears.
Yes, I'm not interested in sound blocking. I'm an all-the-time earplug wearer, and I do have helmet speakers for music, but never at a level that interferes with critical external sound. I just want the wind noise decreased.

 

[Ulvetanna_imp]

Question for those who might know...does 'noise canceling' have the same protective effect as blocking the noise via earplugs? Or does it just trick you into not hearing the noise while the ear drums still get bombarded?

Reverses the phase of the frequency which is coming from outside the earbud/phone. Completely cancels the energy of that frequency.

Very effective. You will NOT hear any vehicles approaching you. Those pesky sirens you'd hear when the fire trucks are bearing down on you to save your home burning to the ground won't interrupt the reveries of sweet, sweet music.

I am sure y'all gather I am not a fan of blocking the hearing in this way. Attenuation, not cancellation, is what we want. Not being able to hear emergency vehicles or other important ambient sounds, not good.

Noise cancelling is not legal, but soft earplugs are OK in CA now, though. I've never had any problem hearing emergency vehicles with these in my ears.

Reverses the phase of the frequency which is coming from outside the earbud/phone. Completely cancels the energy of that frequency.

Very effective. You will NOT hear any vehicles approaching you. Those pesky sirens you'd hear when the fire trucks are bearing down on you to save your home burning to the ground won't interrupt the reveries of sweet, sweet music.

I am sure y'all gather I am not a fan of blocking the hearing in this way. Attenuation, not cancellation, is what we want. Not being able to hear emergency vehicles or other important ambient sounds, not good.

Noise cancelling is not legal, but soft earplugs are OK in CA now, though. I've never had any problem hearing emergency vehicles with these in my ears.
Yes, I'm not interested in sound blocking. I'm an all-the-time earplug wearer, and I do have helmet speakers for music, but never at a level that interferes with critical external sound. I just want the wind noise decreased.

Reverses the phase of the frequency which is coming from outside the earbud/phone. Completely cancels the energy of that frequency.

Very effective. You will NOT hear any vehicles approaching you. Those pesky sirens you'd hear when the fire trucks are bearing down on you to save your home burning to the ground won't interrupt the reveries of sweet, sweet music.

I am sure y'all gather I am not a fan of blocking the hearing in this way. Attenuation, not cancellation, is what we want. Not being able to hear emergency vehicles or other important ambient sounds, not good.

Noise cancelling is not legal, but soft earplugs are OK in CA now, though. I've never had any problem hearing emergency vehicles with these in my ears.
Yes, I'm not interested in sound blocking. I'm an all-the-time earplug wearer, and I do have helmet speakers for music, but never at a level that interferes with critical external sound. I just want the wind noise decreased. You don't want noise-cancelling. Great for pilots who hear everything they need to hear through the headset, not great for us riders who need to hear ambient noise that can be a threat.

The noise-cancellation works by the headset's external microphone comparing the external sound frequencies to what is being piped into the speakers. Anything doesn't match perfectly, the headset generates a perfect replication out of phase, which completely negates the objectionable sounds. It uses a computer for this. However sound can still seep through if the headphones or earbuds don't seal perfectly, it all depends on how effective the seal is between the ear and the headset. It's not perfect. Isolation headphones are the best choice for ear protection, like you would use for flying or shooting.

Your method is the best, attenuate the sound, use external speakers, you can still hear the emergency vehicles, etcetera.

The 3M soft foam plugs I use cut up to 32 dB which is very good.

 

[emptysea]

So...the Bose 30 features "controllable noise cancellation" where the user can set the level of noise cancellation. So, would one be able to cancel the wind noise and still be able to hear a horn, a siren, or my riding friend Laura yelling "I'M HUNGRY!!" ?

 

[Rolls_imp]

jedd, we must be on the same channel or something! I just picked up a pair of Bose QuietComfort 20 earbuds, the wired version of the 30 model. The 20's are black friday/cyber monday available for 199 clams. I read good things from Ptero, Cormanus and others on the forum, so I thought I'd try them. Will know more after this weekend and report back on my experience. Also, I fly commercial for work, so even if they don't work out on the bike, they're sure to be a help on the plane. And compact in my travel bag. Good luck.

 

[Randy B]

Ouch....$300

 

[4 Paws_imp]

Did Ulvetanna really say y'all?

::excited:

 

[Cormanus]

^ Yep.

You do hear things approaching you, unless you have noise cancelling on and music playing very loudly. They do not block out all noise, but they do make a huge difference to the volume of the wind noise.

I can't remember now which end of the frequency spectrum it is, but noise cancelling works better at one end than the other—perhaps it blocks bass better than treble. I'll be sticking with my Bose QC 20s, until they cark at which time I'll look at the bluetooth QC 30s. Although if you can't plug them into the sound system on an aeroplane, I'm not completely sure I'd be interested.

Edit: Just read the specs and they have no pass through function which means they can't be plugged in. That's an issue as I've found the QC20s fantastic when travelling long haul.

 

[Offroad]

How's the charge time on the 30's? I tried the Samsung bluetooth ones and the charge lasted only about 1 1/2 hours....took them back.

 

[Ulvetanna_imp]

Did Ulvetanna really say y'all?

::excited:

All y'all need to ca'm down...:clap:

 

[Allen K_imp]

Will these things work without being paired to a Bluetooth device, in other words just for noise cancelling? I don't listen to music or take phone calls when I'm riding. But I would REALLY like to dial back the wind noise a whole bunch. Ulve's points are well made (as usual) and well taken. I had been following the Skully helmets with high hopes until they hit the wall. These things might be worth trying out.

 

[Ulvetanna_imp]

Some folks like to wear earbuds and listen to music when they do stuff. I tried this once or twice in the late 1980's with the Walkman. I realized I enjoyed riding the motorcycle far more than listening to music and couldn't do both well. Here again it's just the safety nut coming out in me, but there's a reason earbuds of any type are illegal. It seems like a great idea, why not combine as many fun activities as possible? Motorcycling is the kind of fun activity that does not lend itself to being combined. There is so much going on, no room left for any more fun.

Some people like to carry a dog on their bike, I have known quite a few of these. For them, it ain't a ride if the dog ain't there. One guy, who was in the media quite a lot because he continually was cited for this (it's illegal as he was doing it) had his old dog up and die, and got a new dog and continued the practice.

What am I saying? Well I am just saying that anyone reading this, who is thinking about getting all wired up for sound but might have second thoughts, pay attention to those second thoughts.

 

[4 Paws_imp]

Still waiting on the release of the Sena/Bell helmet with active noise cancellation.

 

[Rolls_imp]

Flying from SFO to IAH. QC20 working great. Cancellation works primarily from 100-1000 Hz, they're really just earplugs above that. Can hear voices same as with foam earplugs. Liking them so far. Will try on a ride soon.

 

[jedd_imp]

Quote:Will these things work without being paired to a Bluetooth device, in other words just for noise cancelling?
Yes.

I wear my bose headphones in lieu of wearing my hearing protection ear muffs. They work better at killing all the noise like
When I'm operating power tools (circular saws, drill press, mowing my grass).
the bose eliminates the harsh power tool noise, yet I can still hear voices, which my hearing protection earphone muffs out.

What I couldn't do w/ the Bose headphones was to use them while welding. My welding helmet is too restrictive to also put on hearing protection ear muffs But now, w/ my noise cancelling earbuds, this is no longer a problem.

If you want to try out any Bose product, Bose gives a 30 day full refund, no questions asked. I'm pretty sure Best Buy also extends that same refund policy as well.

 

[the Ferret]

Still waiting on the release of the Sena/Bell helmet with active noise cancellation.

I'm still waiting for them to cure the horrible tinnitus I have from 50 years of motorcycle riding without any ear plugs.