Long story short: Joined a new band as a second guitarist; i grew very comfortable and familiar with my FM9 direct to FOH with IEMs setup. Not sure how much I will be using my IEMs with this band so I will be going direct with an Atomic CLR as a backline cab. Earplugs feel so weird to me now so last night I tried the Apple Airpods Pro 2 Transparency mode during rehearsal. It was cool but I need to try it again. It works by reducing volume levels after they’ve reached a certain threshold (I think 85 dB’s?) so it seemed like theyre not working because some of the loudness is still there, but I do think it leans more towards the “hear the sound as you normally would just lower volumes” camp. I do think they’re better than regular earplugs. But my setup last night wasn’t ideal; we have pretty chill rehearsals so I just go direct into one PA speaker. I honestly could hear everything fine and while it felt loud (louder than normal ear plugs for sure) it wasn’t too loud. I honestly think I just needed to turn my guitar up on the board and I wouldve heard myself fine. For those reasons it’s hard to draw any conclusions. I will definitely be trying this again though for sure because it didnt really alter the sound the way normal ear plugs do. And my ears felt fine after rehearsal and feel okay today. Be great if other people here tried it and see what other results we get! Apple could really take advantage of this if they began to offer some custom EQ options for the transparency mode.
P.S. - Before rehearsal, I took a hearing test via the Mimi app and got an audiogram. You’re able to load the audiogram into the Apple Health app and make some EQ changes that way. See the attached photos for reference. I dont really know how this EQ works or how I would manipulate it to achieve a better noise coming through so I left it alone. Im all ears for suggestions though!!
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