Pro Tool Reviews: Whether you’re on the jobsite, off on the long run, sitting on an airplane, or even just shopping at Walmart, there’s something that almost all of us understand universally – listening to music helps isolate us from all the bad mojo around and makes the time go by faster. When we have to wear hearing protection on the jobsite, our PPE often prevents us from being able to listen to the music we love. ISOtunes Pro Noise Reducing Bluetooth Earbuds offer a solution.
11 comments:
Now I am a big perpetrator of listening to music while working. Life the article mentions I find it easier to concentrate while having music. It provides just enough distraction for me, so I work diligently. Whereas, without music, I find myself being too distracted by outside noises and movement, which gives me some anxiety because I feel like being watched. At least with music, sound wise, you are enveloped by your own choice of world and sound. But on the other side, I am not too sure that this headphone product for working in the scene shop is a good idea. As I have learned from Rigging in the beginning of the school year, and reemphasized by carpentry this this year, the scene shop is a place where, if you aren’t careful or aware enough, you can be greatly injured or die. So, it is important to make sure you are aware of those around you, and can listen to any orders or requests. Having these earphones seem a little counter intuitive to maintaining communication between people, saws, screws, hard wood, and people. It leaves you too vulnerable and risks you being too much of a liability to work in an environment whose foundation and working with sharp tools without causing injury.
I clicked on this article because I have been interested in finding some good headphones that I can work in. These seemed like a great place to start, except when I actually started reading through the article these headphones seem less attractive. Especially from this snippet: “However, you need to keep in mind that sound builds on itself. Here’s an example. Imagine your environmental noise is 112 decibels. The ISOtunes Pro will bring it down to 85 decibels. Actually, the combination of those two sources brings your volume level up to 88 decibels. That increase of three decibels is actually two times the power. And that makes sense – two sources at 85 decibels should be twice the power of one.” I never knew that sound builds on itself, especially if you’re working in an echo-y shop. I think maybe I’ll stick to normal ear protection, and listen to music over the speakers.
I would just like to point out that there is a huge difference from noise canceling and noise reduction. I have always been a big proponent of noise canceling technology and the improvements that its seen over the years, but when it comes time to wear them in the shop they are useless. Every time I have worn them the microphone sensitivity has been too high and it reacts poorly with the cancellation. So I would be skeptical to see how the microphone on this model holds up. By the looks of the ear piece, it seems to just have expanding foam just like standard shop ear buds do. Bottom line is that this product has been something the construction industry has needed or a long time (wearing the 3M over-ear model has always seemed to be a bit overkill). It is also nice to see that OSHA is backing the technology and it is a rated product. I will look forward to seeing how the industry as a whole reacts to the technology and if it catches on or not.
I love noise cancelling headphones so much that sometimes i will just listen to the nothingness without any music, without anything except for the reduced distractions and almost noiseless experience of noise cancelling. I don't possess them currently, but when I did, the best place to use them is when traveling, so that you can get a little bit of peace in whatever craft is conveying you to your destination, and then you have to actually deal with your own thoughts for a terrifying moment before you can turn on a shitty comedy podcast or something to distract you from the pain of existence.
I'm no tsure if i agree on wearing these particular models in the shop though. It has been brought to my attention whenever I make the attempt to wear headphones in the shop, that this is an ill-advised move, and heavily criticized by many. I don't think that combining noise reduction and headphones will really help with the problem of being distracted and isolated from the rest of the shop.
I personally love noise cancelling headphones, you can turn them on and immediately separate yourself from distractions in the world around you. for me that means an opportunity to immerse myself in a good long book, and not worry about some incessant buzzing ruining my visualization of it. while i understand the desire to reduce noise from loud shop machinery and such, i also understand that these buds could only be used in a select few situations in which the wearer is in a low risk environment doing a long repetitive task that poses no immediate danger to them or the people around them. i would love to have a pair to use when trying to get homework or classwork done being as there is generally a fair amount of distracting noise that i could frankly do without. i dont know how effective these would be in a busy shop though, because while noise canceling headphones are good at cancelling out steady frequency noises, when it comes to sharp blows or the spine crawling screech if the radial arm saw coming to a stop, these would likely be useless.
It is interesting to hear the rhetoric surrounding this article as though it passes these headphones off as a good idea for use in the shop or while operating power tools. And I get that many people in the industry have various opinions on this, but the bottom line is: You can never argue that it is "safer" to listen to music while utilizing noise reducing or noise cancelling headphones. You need ear protection to prevent damage to your hearing from shop tools. However, if someone is screaming your name from a few feet away because they see you're about to chop your hand off, or if there is another emergency in the shop that you need to quickly be made aware of, you're kind of fucked because you decided instead of safely just utilizing hearing protection so you don't become deaf at age 20, you wanted to listen to some good jamz while you're getting your work groove on. If you want to listen to music so damn bad, pick a different profession.
I, like many before me, am a huge supporter of noise canceling/reducing and blue-tooth headphones. I recently made the switch this week and it has vastly improved my day. They work amazingly well for art projects, chores, and just daily life in general. Its really a relief to not have to worry about cords getting caught on door handles or keeping my phone in my pocket at all times. That being said, I do not plan on ever using them in the scene shop. I understand that we all like to listen to a soundtrack while working, and headphones allow each person to only listen to the music they like (no one wants to listen to my mid-2000s punk rock). However, I don't believe that allowing ourselves to shut out one of our more useful senses is a safe idea in the scene shop. Why would you weld with a distracting noise when the sound, even reduced by normal hearing protection, tells you so much about what you are doing and if everything is going ok? What is you're working in the shop and something happens to another person and you don't hear it immediately? Music is a good background noise and it gives you a pace to work at, and over the speakers it serves that function well. But when its the only thing in your ear it becomes a problem and a distraction.
I am a huge fan of cancelling noise, and it's even better if I can listen to music instead. However, I would never want to use something like this in the shop or anywhere where noise can notify me of danger. If I'm laying in bed and my roommate is very loudly watching netflix with her boyfriend for some godforsaken reason, noise cancelling headphones are the bomb. If I for some reason have died and gone to hell and been placed back in the scene shop, noise cancelling headphones would probably lead to me getting my arm cut off. The shop tends to blast music during crew hours anyway, even though the music choices are sometimes less than good. Despite some various technical directors' poor taste in music, and still satisfies the need for rockin' tunes in order to get through repetitive stapling and cutting and sanding and what not.
So I wear bluetooth often especially when working alone on any type of project. But that' being said as the article states "The question isn’t whether or not you can listen to music on the job but whether you should listen to music on the job with these." This is an important question be while I may listen to music on my head phones if I am working some repetitive such as ripping a large quantity of ply wood to make a shipping crate inspired set, I would most definitely not use them on any project where I need to be able to communicate with others because I find it's just to damn difficult to hear over the music when it is in your ear. So for high communication jobs in the shop or space I have always opted towards job site radios. And this sorta discussion is why I actually really enjoyed this review even if I find unlikely would purchase the product, the reviewer spent some time thinking on the larger scale of things.
This product seems really cool, and the idea of getting noise cancelling headphones rated as ear protection is a good one. But this article also raises an interesting point about whether you should even be listening to music through earbuds on a jobsite. This article indicates their stance is no if you are working with other people around. I agree, and would even go so far as to add that even working alone you should be able to listen to your surroundings. Tools and machinery will often give auditory indication that it isn’t working correctly. Often, if there’s a problem with a process I’m doing, I hear the sound change before I feel or see a difference. And in more complicated process, like welding, hearing is an essential component. This is not to say that you can’t listen to music at all, but having the ability to clearly hear your surroundings is very important.
This is awesome in my opinion. I hate monotaskers and this is an awesome multi taker. This is mainly appealing to me because if I have them as earbuds, then I don’t also need to carry other hearing protection. I have all I need already with me. I do also do some jobs which are solo so the combination would be nice then, but just in general the fact that I only need to remember one thing to check off two boxes is really nice. I think the decibel rating infraction is important for people to consider and know about, but the company should have really taken that into consideration when developing the product. It would seem to me like a simple thing to take note of and fix, but maybe they thought the marketing would not have been as good if their product actually made logical sense opposed to just being as loud as possible.
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