Key points: Price of hearing protection as a guide to quality
A higher price is not automatically linked to stronger hearing protection.
You can pay £3 or £12 for ear muffs with exactly the same SNR.
The price is usually in build quality and therefore durability of the hearing protection rather than in noise attenuation levels.
More expensive muffs often have replaceable parts where the cheaper ones do not.
Hearing protection comes in a huge range of prices from a couple of quid for a pair of earmuffs to £30 or £40 or more, but does more expensive get you better protection?
What is ‘the best type of hearing protection’?
Firstly, to be clear on one element, 'better’ in terms of hearing protection is not synonymous with ‘stronger’ - more powerful hearing protection is not ‘better’ than a less powerful style. Almost no workplace needs the strongest hearing protection on the market, indeed the most common issue I see when doing noise assessments is hearing protection which is too strong for the noise.
Link: Problems with over-protection
So, ‘better’ doesn’t mean ‘stronger’.
The strongest hearing protection on the market has an SNR of 39 dB (SNR is the number of decibels of noise reduction it gives). At the 38 and 39 dB end of the scale all the hearing protection available are plugs, not a muff - another common misconception is that muffs are stronger than plugs, they aren’t. Those little squishy plugs can be the strongest hearing protection you can get.
At the lower end of the scale though, hearing protection reaches around 16 dB but again these are all plugs, no muffs are this low. Those foam plugs can be both the strongest and weakest hearing protection available, and everything between.
Comparing muffs - the same strength of muffs but at different prices
As the Portwest PW40
As the Beeswift BBED
A common muff are the plain red ones you see here and there are a few reasons these muffs are so common to see in workplaces.
They are actually great for most noisy jobs in terms of how much noise reduction they give. They are not too strong, not too weak, just right.
They’re cheap which is always a draw.
This muff is rebranded a lot and sold under a lot of different names. Beeswift sell it as the BBED, Portwest sell it as the PW40, B&Q sell it with no branding at all, and myriad other websites sell it under their own fairly random naming, usually with nothing printed on the muff at all.
That red ear muff has an SNR of 28 dB and when sold as Portwest as the PW40 it costs around £3, not just cheap as chips, cheaper than chips!
For exactly the same level of protection you could also buy the Uvex K1 muff which has exactly the same SNR of 28 dB but this time costs around £16. Multiple times the money for exactly the same level of protection.
So should you always go cheaper? Not necessarily, what you are paying for is the build quality. The cheapo red ones do a perfectly good job but won’t last as long and will need replacing while those Uvex ones will survive a war zone.
The cheap BBED ones also have a stated life expectancy of ‘two to three years’ whereas the Uvex ones are good for five years. But importantly, the Uvex ones have replaceable cushions so they can be easily, and cheaply, maintained if they get damaged in use whereas the cheap ones do not. If the cushions wear or get damaged the entire muff needs to be replaced.
What about ear plugs?
Flare ISOLATE
I throw this one out there both in light of the same issue of price being unrelated to how good an ear plug is, but how much some companies use social media and rather ‘elaborate’ marketing to push the price of their ear plug up.
These are the Flare ISOLATEPro and because I am an absolute idiot I paid £50 for a pair of these ear plugs (they are now £35). They had an SNR of 36 dB when I bought them, now given online as 30 dB. As well as nothing outstanding terms of performance they are also supremely painful. By far the most painful ear plug I’ve ever tried.
Around the same area of SNR, you can get the old chestnut of the E-A-R Classic plugs which cost about 20p a pair, and even less bought in bulk bags.
And if you want to listen to music, which Flare market these plugs as being good for, then get the Honeywell Multi Max plugs which have a superb even frequency response (meaning they don’t change how music sounds, they just make it quieter) and cost about 16p. And have a stronger overall noise reduction than the Flare ISOLATEs.
So as with ear muffs, spending more on ear plugs is no guarantee of ‘better’ protection.
FAQ: Price of hearing protection
I’ve seen some very cheap hearing protection on Amazon, is that OK to use?
It may be OK, it may not be. Some hearing protection on Amazon is cheap because it is designed to be, while some is cheap because it is an import from HJAyggyuaFTJP Inc. in China who have a company name made from scrabble tiles drawn from a bingo machine and not much of a clue about what they are selling. Amazon is not the seller in this case, just the conduit, and the fact it is on Amazon doesn’t mean it is therefore suitable for use at work. Look for an SNR, and preferably a viewable Certificate of Conformity for EN352. If it lists NRR but no SNR, ignore it.
Shouldn’t my employer always buy the more expensive hearing protection?
Not in terms of getting the right protection, no. There are models of good hearing protection at every price point. After that it comes down to comfort, fit and longevity. Optime II muffs may be built like little armoured tanks for your ears but that is no good if people keep losing them, they may as well have the cheaper ones.
Other information on hearing protection at work
Article last updated: October 2026
