Prevent hearing damage
After a good motor ride do you still have the feeling being on the highway? During motorcycling hair cells in the ear get to endure a lot of noise and there’s not enough time to repair. After riding do you have a beep in your ear, then you can take for granted that some hair cells have died: a definitive hearing damage. Alpine hearing protection can help you prevent this.
Your motor, the traffic and intercom
It’s dangerous when you’re completely isolated of your environment and the traffic that surrounds you. Also you do want to keep hearing your motor! This is the reason Alpine hearing protectors have special filters, that filter only harmful wind noise.
Which risk a motor cyclist is running?
The safe and statutory limit to which the hearing may be exposed is 80 decibel. Regular noise above 80 decibels will irrevocably lead to hearing damage. According to (police) tests it appeared that wind noise under the helmet exceeds this limit way to far and that thus already during a short ride unconsciously you’re running the great risk of hearing damage:
speed |
Wind noise |
max. being exposed to noise time |
100 km/h |
94dB |
15 minutes |
120 km/h |
98dB |
7 minutes |
140 km/h |
102dB |
3 minutes |
Not one helmet offers sufficient protection against…
According to an extensive test of in the German leading motorcycling magazine Motorrad it appeared very clearly that not one helmet offers sufficient protection against the risk of hearing damage. Alpine MotoSafe is the best protection.
Hearing protection solutions of Alpine
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Yellow plugs
The well-known ‘yellow plugs’ isolate your ear completely. Like this you’ll hear less wind noise, but unfortunately you’ll also hear less of your motor and of the traffic that surrounds you. Also most people think the yellow plugs are not comfortable to wear, they don’t fit well and they loosen. Do they fit well, then the advice is: use new ones on a regularly basis, because they are developed for use only once!
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Otoplastic: the customized hearing protector
An otoplastic is a tailor-made hearing protector. It consists of two components: an earpiece and a filter system. From the print of your ear an optimum fit earpiece is developed in the laboratory. The special wind noise filters are inserted in the earpieces, so that your motor and the traffic that surrounds you keep perfectly audible. Your hearing is not isolated. You can choose between hard or soft otoplastics. The especially by Alpine developed soft material is in many things better than hard material: for instance it’s more comfortable to wear, has a longer lifetime (min. 5 years!) and has a better attenuation. Be aware of this while purchasing them, because hard otoplastics can’t be worn under a helmet!
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MotoSafe® hearing protectors
The Alpine MotoSafe is also called the ‘universal otoplastic’. MotoSafe consists of two universal hearing protectors and two different interchangeable filter sets. These special wind noise filters guarantee optimum protection whilst you can still hear ambient noises and can communicate clearly. Also you can still hear your motor. The open canals of the filters ensure that no differences of pressure arise, so that while wearing MotoSafe protectors one has no sense of isolation.
