I have to wear plugs at shows, and most of the weekend of the Detroit festival, because I've worked at and attended so many shows that I get tinnitus. I still have most of my hearing, but I've lost most of it above 14,000 hz.
It would be great if everyone invested in custom-fitted musician's plugs, but these are the next best thing: http://store.yahoo.com/earplugstore/mackshearplugs.html Cigarette Filters are NOT an alternative. If you just have the foam plugs -- they're highly effective at preserving your hearing, but don't sound so good. But stick with it -- your hearing is a dialog between your ears and your brains, and if you keep the plugs in, your ears adjust, and even though high frequencies are attenuated much more than low, you can still hear the music. Often you can hear the music better. That continuous high frequency hash of people shouting at each other and the high frequency sound bouncing around the club makes it difficult to hear anything. I don't really know what to thing about the sound pressure levels in clubs. People want loud systems, but what passes for loud these days is only safe for a hour's exposure a couple of times a month, not seven or eight continuous hours. When I run sound, I don't run the system as loud as it can go, both because it sounds better, and because people don't really notice the difference between 105 dB and 120dB. If I back off the main level and turn up the subs a little so people still feel the bass, they seem happy enough even though the signals hitting their ear are half as loud in linear amplitude. The important thing to remember is that DJs and Musicians are like the Radiologist at the hospital -- their exposure is chronic, whereas a punter's exposure is intermittent, so please remember your protection. Also think about noise in other settings. I wear plugs on the subway in New York, and when I'm on long car rides or airplane flights, because prolonged exposure to levels above 80dB can damage your hearing as well. I find that attenutating the noise also has the effect of reducing my overall sense of fatigue. As important as music is to all the subscribers of this list, this is a very important topic. I'm worried that when today's club kids reach my age, they won't have much hearing left.
