Review & Video: ACS PRO17 Custom Fit Hearing Protectors

Full ACS PRO17 Review

Popular with drummers, DJs, vocalists, sound engineers and frequent visitors to loud events, ACS PRO custom hearing protectors claim to have the most accurate response of any hearing protector in the world, protecting your hearing from harmful sound levels whilst keeping all frequencies in check relative to one another so you get to hear the music just as it should sound. But at almost $200 for a pair, are they really right for DJs or any better than a $2 pair of foam earplugs? Our scratch tutor Steve Canueto puts them through their paces.

My ears are ringing, and here’s why…

Over the last 6 months or so, I have started to notice that I have tinnitus. This issue can affect people in may different ways but for me, it’s a constant high-pitched whistle, that I can hear the most when I’m in a silent place. If you’ve ever experienced that whistling sound you get in your ears when you come home from a loud club or gig, then you’ll know that as time passes, usually in 12-24 hours, it gradually and usually completely, goes away. Well, the best way I can describe what my tinnitus is like it is that it’s that same sensation, but it’s like it’s got stuck at the point of being around 80% gone, and is staying put.

How did it happen? I was always the guy right in front of the speakers in clubs (and I spent many years in many clubs), I always had the monitors as loud as possible and usually just a few feet from my ears when DJing, I had the loudest car sound system (yes, I was that guy) and have always had the loudest in-ear monitors to listen to music when not in clubs / DJ booths / cars. Those years of aural abuse have finally caught up with me. It’s mildly irritating, I can live with it, but it’s more concerning as a warning that my hearing may have been irreparably damaged, and I need to start taking take care of my ears.

I am now reducing my exposure to loud music drastically, only low volume in my earbuds, and no standing in front of any speakers! It’s tough going running without banging beats at full volume but I’ll get used to it.

But what about when I’m DJing? Loud music is unavoidable, and even though I don’t gig in clubs as much these days, my weekly radio show on Beachgrooves Radio exposes me to their incredibly loud studio monitor system. (Admittedly I’m in control of the levels, but sometimes I can’t help myself to crank it up!)

This is why I was very happy to meet with Andy Shiach, founder and CEO of ACS Custom when wandering round the BPM show recently. A quick chat with him about my hearing educated me that I need to take action, right now, to prevent any further damage to my ears.

I’ve always been intrigued by the idea of custom-fit earphones / monitors, where the “earbud” part is moulded to the exact shape of your inner ear to ensure a tight, comfortable and most importantly, airtight fit, but I didn’t know much about using the same technology as hearing protectors.

To me, if you want to protect your hearing (and you can’t turn the volume down), just pop in some foam earplugs, job done. But if you’ve ever tried to DJ with these things in, you’ll know that it feels like you’re DJing in an underwater club – everything sounds muffled and dull and the temptation is often too strong to just pull them out and to say “to hell with it”.

ACS have thought about this and their solution was to design bespoke filters that fit inside the custom moulded “plugs”, that reduce the dB level of frequencies evenly across the spectrum. “Keeping all frequencies in check relative to one another” means you get to hear the music just as it should sound – but quieter with no loss of high or low frequencies. Imagine putting a plug in your ear that simply turns the volume down… Everything is as clear as defined as it would be without them, it’s just all at a lower level, and without any harmful sound waves battering your eardrums.

This sounded exactly what I was looking for for DJing (after all, there were developed for musicians), so I took the plunge there and then at their stand at BPM to get fitted for the custom hearing protectors.

Getting fitted

First Andy needed to take impressions of my inner ear canal so he sat me down on a stool, took a look inside my ears to make sure there was no nastiness in there (thankfully not), then put a tiny foam “plug” in the bottom just before the eardrum to protect it from the moulding foam. He then used a tool like a syringe and slowly squirted this soft yellow goo into my ear, swirling it round like he was decorating a cup cake with icing, until the whole ear canal and the outside of my earlobe was totally full of the stuff.

The sensation is quite strange, especially when both of them are done, as you literally can’t hear anything other than what you pick up as vibrations in your head. After a few minutes, the foam hardens and he pulled the string that was attached to the foam plug, and the whole impression mould comes out. This impression is what they take way and use to make the custom fit plugs. The whole process was painless and over and done within 10 minutes – easy.

ACS have customers all around the world, so if you wanted to get fitted for a pair but can’t make it to the UK they have a list of places on their website where you can go to get the impressions made, and you can send them into them. They have also recently started using laser technology to take the impressions, which would no doubt be less uncomfortable than the foam.

Choosing the right model

The clever thing about the ACS pro system is that the plugs themselves are made to fit your ear, and inside they have a small channel to let sound through, with a whole at the top like a plug hole where a filter is fitted. This filter is what determines how much dB the noise level around you is reduced by, so depending on what sound environment you’re in, you can choose the ones best for you. And if you want different amounts of protection for different environments then you only need a spare set of filters, not a whole new set of earmoulds each time.

The PRO range offers attenuation of between 10dB for musicians who maybe work more with acoustic sound levels right up to 27dB for people like sound engineers, event staff and seriously loud amplified musicians in dangerously loud high-frequency environments. Andy suggested I go somewhere in the middle, which seems to be most popular for DJs, so I went for the 17dB model.

First impressions

Two weeks later my hearing protectors arrived by post. The silicone plugs come in a discreet little protective case with a cleaning tool, some “comfort cream” to help get them in your ears and the instruction manual. You can choose from a wide range of colours but I went for clear; you can also choose from options such as grips to aid removal, attached cords and laser etching. They arrive pre-fitted with the 17dB filter and each one has a logo on it, one red, one blue – the red one if for the right ear – easy enough to remember – “R”ed – “R”ight.

They are a bit fiddly to get in, and so they should be. They are made to be the exact shape as your inner ear, and the silicone material only has a small amount of “give” in it so they can’t be squeezed down like traditional foam earplugs, that’s the idea. If you’ve ever used noise-cancelling ear buds that need to be twisted into the ear canal to get a tight fit, this will feel familiar to you, but if this is your first time you’d be forgiven for thinking they’ve sent you someone else’s!

But here’s a tip we never like to follow – read the instructions! It tells you how to grip the buds, and the position to start to enter them into the canal and twist into place, and eventually the fit snugly and discreetly right inside your ear – you can hardly even see they’re there from the outside.

And when they “slot” in – wow. Who turned off the world? It’s a very strange feeling. It’s like someone “turned down” the sounds on everything. I can still hear the tapping of my keyboard as I type, I can still hear when I click my fingers and I can still hear Phil when we’re in conversation (I suppose it’s not all good news…) but everything is just quieter. Oh, there is one thing I can still hear just the same as before… my tinnitus. Logically these are not going to do anything to reduce this, only to help prevent it worsening.

At this stage I can’t imagine DJing like this, but I’ll be using them to DJ at my radio show to see if they deliver on the promise of delivering the full frequency range.

In use

I started my show off as normal, and fitted the protectors after playing a few tracks, so I could get a “before and after” comparison. The sound system in the Beachgrooves studio is awesome – and it’s loud. There are four speakers pointing directly at you from each corner and a mammoth sub under the desk makes the whole room sounds like a club. And I like it loud (hence my hearing damage). There’s something not quite right about simply “turning it down”. It’s not as easy to feel the vibe and get lost in the mix if you’re working at background music levels. I like to feel the thump – but with the thump comes dangerously high levels on the ears from the mids and tops. My iPhone dB meter shows 101db in there when it’s cranked – not good.

After fitting the ACS protectors I carry on with my show as normal, and I found that they were very quick to get used to. The music in the room sounded, as far as I could tell, exactly like it does normally, just quieter (and I could still feel the thump). Cueing tracks in the headphones was totally fine, although I did increase the volume on my headphone output a little, but nowhere near as much as I need to when playing in a loud room normally. The frequency range sounded bang on, so I was able to pick out the crispness of snares and definition on kicks required to keep the beats locked in time. This is the stuff that you just lose completely when you use foam earplugs.

When mixing (both tracks live in the mix, still using my headphones to check the incoming track is in time), again, all the frequencies are there, I can hear everything I need to from the house system and the headphones, exactly as it would normally be but without the eardrum abuse, the 17dB reduction is just about right for this environment.

After a coupled of mixes I forgot I was wearing them. I felt like I was “in the room” and not underwater, and didn’t feel like I was missing any detail from the music at all. I got into trouble when the station manager came in to hear the system banging out at full blast with me none-the-wiser, I suppose I was still looking for that “extra little bit” even with the plugs in… 🙂

Using the mic

I moved from my S4 over to the broadcast mixer to make an announcement. This requires a different set of headphones and taking into the mic. This was a little strange, although nothing like the underwater effect of most earplugs! The sensation is like talking but you can’t hear yourself fully and I had no idea if I was shouting or not, I’ll have to listen back to the recording to check that out, but it wasn’t problematic – just something to get used to.

According to ACS this is due to “the occlusion effect”, the booming sensation caused by sound that is carried to your ear canal through the cartilage at the side of your head, which usually escapes through the open ear canal so is not heard. When you wear ear plugs this sound cannot escape and creates the “boom”, however compared to traditional foam plugs this issue is hugely reduced with the ACS pros because of the way they’re designed: They sit deep enough into the ear canal to extend past the cartilage which ensures that the sound hits the plug and is deadened rather than entering the canal at all.

The PRO filters go one step further by being vented to allow sound to pass both ways, meaning that remaining sound can escape directly through the filter, “providing one of the most natural sounding earplugs available”. Pretty clever stuff.

Conclusion

If you’re a DJ playing out (or even at home), you are exposing your hearing to potentially dangerous levels of sound and you should try to reduce this exposure where you can. At a starting price of £139 ($190) you may not consider these to be an essential DJ purchase, but once your hearing is damaged, there’s no turning back. You wouldn’t consider rock climbing without a crash helmet, and you should start to respect your hearing in the same way you respect your skull.

If you’re a working DJ and you are not protecting your ears – please, start doing something about it now. Your ability to earn money is gone if you lose your hearing, and not only that – you won’t be able to enjoy what you love – music!

The ACS PRO custom fit hearing protectors deliver on their promise to protect your ears without degrading sound quality, or detaching you from the vibe of the room. The service was great and the plugs are comfortable to wear for long periods. The only down sides for me at least were the strange sensation when talking, and that they are not comfortable to sleep in, (for that you need a different designed plug), but for club DJs these are not really the reasons you would buy these in the first place, and if they’re good enough for Tiesto, Deadmau5 and The Prodigy, you’re in good company.

If you’re looking for professional hearing protection with adaptability and comfort, then these are highly recommended.

Talkthrough video

How do you protect your hearing while you DJ? What kind of earplugs do you use? Or do you use any ear protection at all? We’d love to hear your thoughts and experiences below.