How do you safely manage hearing on a budget?
As a teenager with no savings and a part time "job" tutoring kids, i don't exactly have hundres lying around for custom fit hearing protection, or high tech headphones or stuff. And i definitely don't have enough to spend 60+ on stuff that i'm not sure if it'll work. I can probably convince my parents to invest in a more expensive item if it's worth it but I really think i need to do something.
I love drumming to music especially like rock and stuff so i need to hear my music. My current setup is sennheiser simple in-ear, off the shelf, tri flange hearing protection that i picked up for like $20 at london drugs.. rated for 20 DB. and i have bluetooth sony headphones that i can hear over that if i max them out ... which i feel like is fine cus it's still a good volume in my ear and so overall it should cut down some of the damage from the sharp soundwaves from the drums right??
I've asked questions on here before and i know that this is a common one but seriously i don't know how anyone knows what will work because i don't want to stop drumming but it's starting to concern me a lot.
For a little context I've been playing drums for 6 years now, and really only got into it a few years ago. I also regularly play with the drumline at my high school so that's super loud especially when we play inside. This week we marched thru the halls of our school and that was so loud i almost had to stop...
Today i noticed after i was drumming that my ears were ringing way more than i'd ever consider normal or "fine", so i timed it and it took over Twenty minutes for the ringing to start going away, not including the few mins before i timed it.
That's gotta be bad right?
Sorry i know this is a lot of probably useless info i just thought maybe someone in here would know more about this than what i can see; TLDR I need help figuring out how to properly protect my ears without spending a fortune on expensive devices or trial and error. Thanks to anyone able to comment :)