Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. It would be helpful to include distances/conditions with the numbers because while a gunshot could still be harmful from 5 yards away, a noisy squeeze toy (which produces similar dB) would probably be relatively harmless from the same distance. Like you said, there's all kinds of things to consider...so just saying "140 dB" is bad, is a little vague.

Also Kevin, what you're talking about seems to be pretty common in people who spend a lot of time around loud noises. The ear tries to protect itself. We see a lot of it at the clinic. Aren't ear irrigations wonderful? You wouldn't believe the crap that comes out of peoples' ears.

Many Ear, Nose and Throat doctors will give musicians free hearing tests.

You can also get them cheap/free if you're at a university. Just make sure they understand you're there for the hearing test...and not the STD test...

hmmmmm....How would you get STD symptoms in your ears Mantis?

After reading all this and having tinnitus myself, I am finally going to get a pair of isolation headphones or earplugs. I might get them free cause my dad's ENT specialist!

Ya. I got some earplugs just a little while ago. Now I keep them on my keychain so that I won't forget them =).

What kind of earplugs would you use? I have some lyng around the house that are for like swimming underwater and stuff. Will those work?

go to CVS and buy some...they're like $2-5, depending on how many and how high decibels you want to reduce. check the back of them. some of them have decibel relation scales (such as how loud a tractor is, a rock concert, etc). It'll be a good investment.

You can also check in the Review section, there are one or two good sets of plugs listed there.

I've never noticed any hearing problems. I'm playing snare this year and we have two underclassmen who are big fans of the rimshots. I play in a rock band, and I'm around firearms pretty regularly. I even go to the races every now and then, but I've never noticed any hearing loss. Normally the line practices outside but occassionally we're in the band room and yeah it's loud but not deafing. Our instructor doesn't enforce any hearing protection so none is worn. None of us are losing any hearing. Maybe that's just us though.