DJ Occupational Hazard – Protecting Your Hearing

The best tip IMO is to get a pair of high quality headphones.
My strong believe is that bad headphones has caused two of my friends that are DJ Tinnitus!
One of the DJed one night with his Sony HP speaker broken and after that night he had tinnitus.

For me it is acouple of things I do.
1 Only use high quality sound products all the line but specially headphones.
2 Always stay behind the PA speaker (if possible)
3 Use the headphone as a soundbarrier to rest ears from time to time.
This means having the headphones on your ears with no sound on to damp the sound from the PA.
It might sound odd to do this but it actualy works for me…..
4 Keep the volume in PA and headphones on a level that is no too loud.
If you have trouble hearing your HP try to push them closer to the ear by your shoulder
that way you close more sound out and get more bass in your HP.

Of cause the best is to get in ear dampers that is made exclusive for your ears.
But they are very expencive, on the other hand you can not put a pricetag on your hearing
especially if you are a DJ!

This is a swedish company making personal earplugs
http://www.earfoon.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=category&layout=blog&id=8&Itemid=13

Use googletranslate if you want it in another language
http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=sv&tl=en&js=n&prev=_t&hl=sv&ie=UTF-8&layout=2&eotf=1&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.earfoon.com%2Findex.php%3Foption%3Dcom_content%26view%3Dcategory%26layout%3Dblog%26id%3D8%26Itemid%3D13&act=url

The thing I’ve found is to be careful of how much TREBLE is out there. I’ve been told and shown how a high shrill noise can damage ears way more than loud bass.

I also say every DJ should own a pair of ear plugs and wear them when they’re going to be in a loud club/event for many hours, but not playing. So you show up at 10, but are playing at 1 or 2 AM…wear the plugs.

I personally also like to give my ears a good rest in silence after a night of loudness. So I play a gig, I’d not touch the stuff the next 1-2 days.

Nothing I hate more than loud treble at a show. No one likes it, it’s sure to clear the floor, and I’ve even seen it clear an entire rave. I go to concerts every now and then and I’m starting to consider bringing earplugs as a precaution. I like it as loud as the next guy, but there’s a line that gets crossed all too often.