If you’re a gigging enthusiast, like I am, earplugs are a necessity. And there’s an outside chance you’ve already discovered this the hard way, whether through that incessant ringing in your ears every night or the slow realisation you can’t pick voices out from a crowd anymore. If you’re not there yet, congrats! And if you are: the best time to start wearing earplugs was at your first gig, but the second-best time is now.
There’s a veritable shedload of earplugs available for you to get, but loads of them sound terrible – none worse than the freebie foam numbers you get from behind the bar at the gig venue. There’s plenty of consumer-focused earplugs too, that try to appeal through good looks over great sound. Usually, you’ve got to pay through the nose for an earplug listening experience worth the ticket price; what if there was an affordable pair of gig-friendly earplugs that actually sounded good?
Design
Where many Audio-Technica products prior have the musician, DJ, hobbyist or audio professional somewhat in mind, the AT-ERP5 clearly has the gig-going consumer in its sights instead – as telegraphed by some unusually swanky product design.
The AT-ERP5 sport some sleek chassis, with a metallic fingernail-like body and a smoky silicone ring for ease of removal and storage. They come in two colourways, too; mine are the black variety, but you can also get them in a fetching gold, with corresponding white ear tips.
Features
The Audio-Technica AT-ERP5 are pitched less as a fusty set of health and safety equipment, and more as a chic accessory for the gigging individual – a visual aesthetic that belies some truly clever dual-layer filtering technology beneath the sheen. We’ll come to what this tech yields experience-wise shortly, but for now: the AT-ERP5 sport a comfortable SNR of 21dB (and, for the US, an NRR of 14dB).
In the box, you get the earplugs themselves, a hard case for safe and easy transportation, and three sets of different-sized ear tips in a small paper envelope, which accompany the pair already installed on the earplugs (bringing the total sizes of ear tip on offer to four).
The pre-installed set were too large for my ears, and a tad painful at that, requiring me to step down to a smaller size. In doing so, I found that the tips of each earbud were flared more aggressively than most other brands, meaning a more secure fit for the provided tips but also a fairly protracted time of getting the next pair installed. Still, I’d rather this than they came out readily in my ear after use, which happens to me enough elsewhere to be an outsized nuisance in my gigging day-to-day.
That hard case itself is worthy of some notice. There’s a moulded silicone interior which satisfyingly receives the earbuds; those loop handles click softly yet firmly into place, past a small ridge into their respective moulds. I spent longer than I really ought to have done testing the security of this fit by dropping the entire hard case, lid open, to the ground – and I couldn’t get the earbuds to fall or bounce out once.
If there’s anything approaching a problem with this case, it’s that it’s a little bigger than some might prefer. But with a loop anchor set into the side, this could easily hang off your keys, carabiner, belt loop or jacket with the right cable or string (sadly not included).
And, while we’re at it, if there’s anything approaching a problem with the wider package so far, it’s the ear tips – all of which are single-flanged, and tend to be quite irritating if they spend more than a little while in your ears. Even after selecting the ‘right’ size for my admittedly somewhat undersized ear canals, they felt a bit raw after wearing these earplugs. Then again, I’ve been spoiled by earplugs over six times the price.
Performance
Usually, when it comes to consumer-forward earplug products with which the ERP-5 share a shelf, I find the same essential sonic shortcoming: a noticeable high-end roll-off, albeit variable from product to product. Even though this is one of the primary problems that earplugs manufacturers task themselves with solving, and even though they have varying degrees of success in solving it, that slight muffling is practically impossible to negate completely – at least, not at this price point. Until, it seems, kind of now?
The Audio-Technica ERP-5 are, somehow, absurdly good at preserving enough high-end information to be believably transparent in loud, live situations. My first experience wearing them in front of a band was, frankly, bizarre. It’s the closest I’ve felt a pair of earplugs from this price range has gotten to literally turning down the volume on real life.
The instinct is to expect a bit of muffle, or a general preference for low-end information, simply due to the limitations of earplug designs past. The AT-ERP-5 are different, though; somehow, there’s a high-end preference that keeps things airy, breathable, semi-literally atmospheric. This pays dividends in boomy rooms, but also makes the AT-ERP5 surprisingly effective in quieter settings, as accessories to focus.
I’ve tried dozens of similar and semi-equivalent budget-range ear-plugging products before, and I can confidently say this is the first time that one has genuinely surprised me. It’s nothing short of a miracle that something at this price can achieve this so readily, and proof positive of Audio-Technica’s well-earned stature in the wider audio scene. It’s just a shame that they aren’t as comfortable long-term as they could be, else these unduly swanky little budget earplugs would get top marks.
The alternatives
Alpine MusicSafe Pro
The de facto choice for musicians, there’s no discounting the excellence of the Alpine MusicSafe Pro. Rather than a hard shell with swappable ear tips, the MusicSafe Pro are all tip, with interchangeable filters that allow you to select the right amount of attenuation for your gig.
D’Addario dBud
Though a little pricier, D’Addario’s dBud earplugs are intriguing prospects for their adjustable attenuation via a slider on each bud; they also come with a handy leash, magnetic chassis to keep them safely together around your neck when not in use, and five different sizes of tip for a better in-ear fit.
