Planet Waves Pacato Ear Plugs PWPEP1, Black, Large

I was excited to get my pair of Placato ear plugs but was upset to see that one of the plugs had deformity in its rubber seal (see my uploaded customer image). This meant that one plug would not sit in the ear properly.

However the one that wasn’t damaged, fit in the ear canal well and successfully attenuated noise without muffling.

Sending back to Amazon for a replacement.

**UPDATE: Replacement arrived today and is in worse shape than my initial pair, both plugs are defective!

Don’t waste your time with these ear plugs, their quality checks are atrocious, or the product warps after some time in packaging.**

I have found that most musicians ear plugs attenuate too much sound and make concerts and band practice less enjoyable. Comparing the sound attenuation of these to other popular musician ear plugs, you can see that these provide less than most, 12db of reduction. Based on my experience, I think this is the perfect amount.

While going deaf for the rest of the night at a rock show is something of a rite of passage in my opinion, I’m starting to get too old for it, and the pursuit of a career as a sound designer means that I need to value my hearing more than ever. I needed a set of earplugs to wear to shows, and I wanted something better than the foam ones that are so ubiquitous. I like these.

Any earplug is going to attenuate sound unevenly in some way or another; while I don’t understand the exact details, I do know that it’s basic physics that you can’t attenuate everything evenly, especially in an earplug form factor. Using these earplugs, some high-end attenuation is very apparent. What’s important is that it’s not as severe as using the cheap foamies that we’ve all stuck in our ears at some point or another. I’ve found that over the course of an evening you get used to the characteristics of the attenuation, and stop really thinking about it. Unprotected, my hearing would start to dull after the opening acts, so that by the main event things sounded muffled anyway. At least this way I can walk out of the venue at the end of the night and still hear properly.

I had some trouble initially getting a good seal in one ear. I stored the earplugs, unused, for several months with the second (middle) flange flipped inside out. Whether this helped or not, I don’t know; but I store them this way so that the middle flange will hopefully get flexed a little wider and give a better seal. I don’t flip them back before sticking the plugs in my ears, either. This seems to have worked, as I got a decent seal at both of two shows just recently. This was my main concern with the earplugs when I first got them; after all, if there’s no seal then they aren’t really protecting your ears.

One quality which weighed heavily in the Pacato’s favor over other plugs was that they don’t protrude from the ears when being worn, unlike some others with stems which look like little alien antennas. These plugs are pretty discreet and don’t look goofy. They can take a little effort to remove, depending on your individual anatomy. I have some trouble getting a firm grasp on the little tabs, but I’ve never been in a situation where I really struggled with them, so it’s nothing more than a minor inconvenience.

As a musician, I haven’t used these while playing, so I can’t speak to using them for that purpose. I would certainly want to take them out anytime I was setting my guitar tone, as the aforementioned attenuation is uneven and would give a very false impression of your tone. I suppose once the sound I was after was achieved, I could put them in and play, but many guitarists make minor adjustments to their sound constantly, so I’m not sure how that would work. I’ll have to try them sometime.

All in all, a solid purchase. Cheaper than going to a big-name show, and they should protect my ears through many of those.

Nice clarity and sound attenuation. I recommend them for concerts, clubs, loud workplaces etc.. Put them in and forget them. The sound is better than the ER plugs but those are easier to remove and insert quickly. Think about that if you find yourself taking your earplugs in and out often.

UPDATE: I am still using these regularly in a live band situation. They are the best off-the-shelf plugs I’ve ever used. They are comfortable too. In my earlier review above I said that they were not as easy to take on and off as the ER’s. Not anymore, I got used to grabbing the little tab. Anyway, it’s been 4 months and I’m still happy with them.

I’ve been on an earplug kick lately, trying out all the mid-priced and expensive ear plugs that claim to “lower the volume” without muffling the sound. Lots of plugs do a good job of simply blocking out sound, but a whole different world unfolds when you still want to hear things naturally, just not as loud. Some plugs reduce the volume well, but are uncomfortable or impossible to wear for very long. Some plugs I tried had the comfort thing nailed down, but just didn’t sound as clear as I needed. Then, of the few plugs that fit and sounded decent, there was the issue of too much internal resonance (when you can hear yourself talking, breathing, things rubbing on your clothing, etc.).

Then, I stumbled on these Planet Waves “Pacato” plugs. I found them after researching the “Pacato” branded plugs sold in Europe. More than just a plastic insert with a hole in the center, the diffuser technology used in the Pacato plugs takes a different approach to reducing sound. The result is an exceptionally discrete, super-comfortable ear plug that truly “turns down the volume” without the annoying inner ear resonance. They attenuate higher frequencies in the most natural way I’ve experienced from any plug and, while I wouldn’t dare use these at a shooting range, they work great at bringing loud rock/metal concerts down to tolerable and non-damaging levels. They also work great when playing my guitar at louder volumes. With ear plugs, it’s easy to the lose the dynamics of a musical instrument and feel detached from what you’re playing, but these work very well and keep playing enjoyable.

Highly recommended (and great price from Amazon)!