Hearing Protection Pro-Grade Soundproof Ear Muffs

Muffs that fit in the crib bag.

The muffs they hand you at the gate are the size of a dinner plate. They will not go in a crib bag, so they live in the ute, and the ute is never where you are when the rattle gun starts. You end up standing next to it with nothing on your ears.

That is the real failure, and it is not the gear breaking. It is the gear being somewhere else. Noise damage stacks up over a working life and you do not get it back, so the set that is actually on your head beats the better set sitting on the passenger seat.

These fold. The cups swing up into the headband and the whole set collapses flat, so it will go in a crib bag, a glovebox or a range bag and stay there. The cups are slim and tapered, which means they clear a cap brim and a rifle stock instead of fighting them.

They are passive muffs. No battery, no microphone, no speaker, no electronics of any kind. A moulded cup, a foam-filled cushion and a seal against the side of your head is the whole mechanism.

What It Does

• Packs down flat: the cups swing into the headband, so the set stores in a bag instead of swinging off the outside of one.
• Adjusts up and down: sliding wire arms on both cups. The supplier publishes no head circumference range, so we cannot tell you where it stops.
• Cuts noise passively: a sealed cup over a foam-filled cushion, working the same way a closed door works. Nothing switches on.
• Keeps a low profile: tapered cups sit closer to your head, so they clear a cap brim, a hood and a rifle stock.
• Three colourways: Green, Black and Desert tan, so they can match the rest of your kit or disappear into it.

Key Features

• Folding cups: both cups rotate into the headband and the set lies flat for storage or travel.
• Sprung wire yoke: a wire arm each side carries the cup and slides for height.
• ABS ear cups: the supplier artwork calls out a solid ABS shell.
• Foam-filled cushions: soft ear cushions with foam inside, sitting on the double-shell cup.
• Padded headband: a covered pad across the crown rather than bare band on your scalp.
• Supplier attenuation figure: the artwork prints NRR 21. Read the Limits tab before you lean on that number, because it is a United States measure and it is not an Australian rating.
• Nothing to charge: no battery, no lead, no electronics to go flat or fail.
• Sold as one set: one pair of muffs per order, in the colour you pick. Not a multi-pack.

Limits

The rating, straight: the supplier prints NRR 21 on its own artwork, and that is the only attenuation figure anybody publishes for this muff. NRR is a United States measure. AS/NZS 1270, the Australian and New Zealand standard, does not use NRR at all — it uses SLC80 and grades a protector Class 1 to Class 5. There is no conversion between the two. No AS/NZS 1270 class is published for this muff, and we have not sighted a test certificate for any figure on it. If your worksite requires a rated protector with a class on the box, this is not it.

No active noise cancelling: these are passive muffs. There is no battery door, no microphone, no speaker and no electronics anywhere on them — the cup, the foam and the seal against your head are the whole mechanism. One of the supplier images claimed active noise cancellation. It was wrong, and we have taken it off this page. Electronic muffs that pass speech through and clamp down on a gunshot are a different product, and this is not one of them.

The CE mark is not a certificate: a bare CE is moulded into the Desert cup. It carries no notified body number and no EN 352 reference, and it does not appear on the Green or Black cups at all. A genuine EN 352-1 muff is marked on every unit. We have not sighted a certificate, so treat that mark as a moulding, not as evidence.

Headband only: there are no slot arms for a hard hat. If your site runs cap-mounted muffs on a helmet, these will not clip on and there is no helmet version of them.

Muffs reduce, they do not remove: no passive muff makes a jackhammer quiet. It takes the top off the noise so the exposure is lower. Around sustained heavy plant, plugs under muffs is the normal answer, and a set of muffs on its own is not.

Nothing we can tell you about size: the supplier publishes two unlabelled figures and no weight, and there is no dimension panel on any of the product artwork. We have put both figures in the spec table exactly as they were given and marked the rest as not specified, rather than pick one and dress it up as a measurement.

Q & A

Will these get through a site induction that asks for a rated protector?

Probably not, and it is better you know now. Australian and New Zealand sites work off AS/NZS 1270, which grades a protector Class 1 to Class 5 from an SLC80 test. This muff has no published class and no sighted certificate. The only figure printed on it is a United States NRR of 21, and NRR does not convert to a class. Check what class your site specifies and compare it against what is actually marked on the muff.

Are these the electronic kind that let you hear someone talking?

No. They are passive. Sound in the room is reduced across the board, including the bloke trying to tell you something. If you need speech through and impulse noise clamped, you want electronic muffs, which these are not.

Will they fit on a hard hat?

No. They are headband only. There are no slot arms, so they cannot be cap-mounted, and a headband will fight a hard hat brim if you try to wear both.

How small do they fold?

The cups rotate into the headband and the set lies flat. The supplier does not publish a folded dimension and none of the product artwork shows one, so we are not going to invent a number for it. Judge it off the folded photos in the gallery.

What is the Desert colour actually like?

A flat tan, the coyote sort of shade, with black cushions and a black headband. It is also the only cup with a CE moulded into it. The Green is an olive drab and the Black is all black.

How long will they take to get here?

10 to 14 days from the day you order, and allow up to three weeks. Delivery is free to Australia and New Zealand.

Specs