Love your lugs and make the world sound better

Focus on the sounds you love - and turn down the rest

Ears aren’t just for hanging exciting jewellery from. They’re where music gets into your head, which we’re pretty sure means that they’re one of the most important bits of your entire body. So it’s a shame that they’re under constant attack. 

The attackers vary from person to person and from place to place, but they can include snorers capable of waking the dead, too-loud or too-tinny club PA systems, bike, car and truck engines and all those power tools that seem to make an enormous amount of noise without really doing anything. 

If you’ve ever finished a shift, a trip or a gig with your brain jangling and your hearing shot to bits, you’ll know how tiring noise can be. Wouldn’t it be great if you could shut all of that out and only hear what you really want to hear? Now you can. 

 Ear we go  

We know what you’re thinking. Earplugs. But earplugs are a very old-fashioned solution to a very modern problem. Shoving a blob of silicon, plastic, foam or cotton wool into your ear canal is rather like hiding under a thick blanket: it muffles some of the frequencies, but the low-end thumps and sub-sonic rumblings still make it through. 

That’s disastrous if you’re going to a show or a club, because you lose the clarity of the music and get a relentless thud-thud-thud in your ears instead, and it’s pretty useless for travelling too, because the low frequencies are where the most annoying noises lie. Think aeroplane engines, or the rumble of a bus, or the drone of someone’s really boring conversation. What you really need is a forcefield. 

Insert  Feel the force (field) 

Imagine if, instead of earplugs, you had a sonic forcefield. At a gig or club it would reduce the sonic peaks to protect your hearing, but you’d still hear every note and feel every beat. At home, it would filter out the snores that would normally keep you awake. When travelling, it would turn the volume of the whole world down.  It turns out that such a forcefield already exists, and it’s called ISOLATE. 

According to Glen Rowe, Muse’s tour director, ISOLATE is “bloody genius”. Stephen Tayler, producer and engineer for the likes of Kate Bush, Underworkd, Rush, Stevie Nicks and Suzanne Vega says ISOLATE has “the comfort, feel and familiarity of the best earphones.” Legendary producer and musician Tony Visconti says ISOLATE is “a revelation.” Time for the science bit. 

 Very, very metal  

ISOLATE Ear Protectors are the most metal ear protectors you can get, because they’re made out of aluminium or titanium. Unlike traditional ear protectors, which are absorbent, the metal means that unwanted sound simply can’t penetrate the ISOLATE Ear Protectors. 

Thanks to the ISOLATE’s unique patent pending technology you’ll still hear everything with perfect clarity and feel the physicality of the music, but you won’t have your ears ringing for days afterwards - a sure sign that you’re doing damage to your sensitive inner ears. ISOLATE gives you all of the pleasure without any of the pain. They’re great for non-musical environments too: loud working environments, noisy vehicles, bedrooms where it’s a race to get to sleep before the snoring starts. You’re probably expecting a huge price tag. Nope. 

 Long live ears  

We all know good sound can be expensive, and in some fashionable circles bad sound isn’t exactly cheap either. But Flare Audio has bucked the trend with its ISOLATE Ear Protectors. The aluminium version, which is amazing, is just £24.99. The Titanium version, which is even more amazing, is still only £49.99. And the products are available right now on Kickstarter and on Flare Audio’s website before rolling out globally on Amazon. 

They’ll fit almost every ear size, and they’ll delight you wherever you use them.  Back to Tony Visconti. “FLARE is a fairly new name in the Audio world.  In the space of two months I have used two of their very unique products. The ISOLATE® Micro Ear Protectors are the best ear plugs I’ve ever used, great for air travel and very loud concerts!” Let’s face it. We all know that we should protect our ears from noise, but traditional ear plugs just make everything muffled. By offering great protection in a way that makes things sound better instead of worse, ISOLATE does something magical. As the hashtag puts it - #LongLiveEars! 

Available on Amazon

Or for more info, please visit flareaudio.com

T3 Online

T3.com is one of the UK's leading consumer lifestyle websites, visited by over 10 million people every month. You can follow us on TwitterFacebook and Instagram. We present products in helpful buying guides and carefully curated deals posts across style, living, auto, smart home, watches, travel, fitness and more. We also have a monthly magazine which you can buy in newsagents or subscribe to online – print and digital versions available.