Earplugs are so punk rock
Issue #20
Carolynn Travis markets EarLove to music fans
By Amber Drea
Published: June 1st, 2004 | 12:00am
Remember when a show wasn't good unless your ears were still ringing the next day? Times have changed. Now, if you're serious about music, you wear earplugs to protect your hearing. See all those old people with hearing aids? "They didn't have sophisticated PAs [when they were young]," says Carolynn Travis, who started her own brand of earplugs called EarLove in late 2003. "So you can just imagine what it's gonna be like when our generation gets older. Everyone will be wearing hearing aids."
Travis, a.k.a. DJ Numinous Radio (and former manager of Poi Dog Pondering), found out that she had significant hearing loss in both ears 10 years ago. She began seeing audiologist Gail Gudmundsen, whose husband, Mead Killion, founded Etymotic Research in 1983. Etymotic means "true to the ear," and the science lab is responsible for developing a variety of high-fidelity products to improve and protect hearing, including Musicians Earplugs, the custom-fitted earplugs designed for musicians which cost $125 to $150 a pair.
But Travis realized there was a need to bring a universal, inexpensive, hi-fidelity earplug to the consumer of music. Travis, who is legally deaf, had been talking about selling something like EarLove for a few years. "I just never really got serious about it until I realized that I won't be able to dee-jay forever," she says.
Etymotic had created the mass-produced, one-size-fits-all ERo20, which is the type of earplug Travis sells under the name EarLove ($15 at earlove.net). The ERo20, if worn properly, will reduce noise by 20 decibels without losing quality — unlike foam earplugs, which muffle sounds. For example, the volume at a nightclub is usually about 105 decibels, which is an unsafe level for bare ears; with EarLove, you can stay in that environment for four hours before incurring hearing damage.
Though other companies also sell ERo20s, musicians are their main target. Travis' mission is to increase the general public's understanding of hearing damage. "I just want people to have the information about what they're actually doing. Because if your ears are ringing when you leave, you damaged them."
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