CessiMarie,

Thanks for the link to the paper. I believe this conversation is not so far from the original subject, although it has become rather technical.

I may have to wear hearing aids in my future, maybe near future, so I am interested also because of my case.

I have inspected the graphs in the paper. I note that even the worst performing (Lucite shell w/.15" vented) is good in damping high frequencies, which are those involved in the higher range our instruments and the piccolo. This model of earmold provides about 20 decibels damping at about 3 KHz frequencies. Reducing the vent hole to 0.03" increases the damping to 30 dB. Unvented models go well below 35 Db, but maybe they could be inconvenient to use permanently, I do not know. My mother had the highest gain model and it used a silicon earmold, vented type.

It is true that a lower frequencies the damping is little (0-3 dB), but this is not the range we are interested in.

Note that the Decibel is a logarithmic unit of measure. 20 Db amounts to a reduction in the sound power reaching your ear of 100 times. Though it may be more useful to speak in terms of sound pressure, I am not sure whether this is equivalent or it could represent only 10 times reduction, depending on the relationship between sound power and sound pressure. I had investigated this some time ago (for the older thread), but now I cannot recall.

Even at 10 times, the damping is important. Another thing to check is the correct range of frequencies of the piccolo. I think it plays an octave above our 3rd octave in the flute. If so, and if the low A in the C flute is 440 Hz, the low A in the piccolo should be 3,520 Hz, well in the range I estimated for reading the graph. But this is a fast calculation and it maybe wrong. Maybe someone else in the forum could check these values and correct if necessary.

So you may be reasonably protected, anyway!

Good news for piccolo then!

I would probably still use ear plugs for piccolo practise. For general orchestra playing it's more difficult.

Feel free to send me a message if you have any general questions about the inside life of wearing hearing aids. However you seem to be well informed!

Beware when in an orchestra. Other instruments can be very powerful and produce much lower frequencies, such as drums and other percussions. Those HA earmolds seem not to protect much under 500 Hz (A=440 Hz)

Thank you for your offer. I may need H.A in a few years, when my present difficulties to follow a conversation in a relatively noisy environment become too important that could cause social isolation.

i also wanted to buy a piccolo because i always found it kinda of interesting and i always wanted to play it, however i never knew it could create ear damage to your ears if you didn't put ear plugs in your ears when you practiced it. As a current flute player i know how high you can play with a flute so i could imagine how high a piccolo could play. I understand the risks of the piccolo's high pitches but i am still interested in playing and buying one anyone have a good idea on what piccolo i could buy for starting out?