Adaptive Ear Plugs: Hear Through vs Noise Breaker

[ejackson1075]

I've been doing some research and I think I've hit a road block. I'm hoping to find someone personally familiar with one or better yet both of the two competing technologies Hear Through and Noise Breaker.

Hear Through is used in the dual sided military plugs among others and uses a frequency sensitive filter. Basically the filter reacts to the frequency of the sound and filters higher pitched noises more than lower pitched noises.

Noise breaker uses another technology which has a series of steps which bounce a portion of the incoming noise back converting the noise into minute amounts of thermal energy. Low volume noise passes relatively unaffected, but high volume noises are neutralized lower volumes allowing the remainder to pass through.

The problem is neither technology realy explain what type of performance is to be expected at gunshot volumes and at gunshot frequencies and both of them claim essentially the same end result. That is, normal conversation is audible, but gunshots, blasts, machine noise etc. is muffled to safe levels.

I'm hoping somebody out there has compared the two and can give me an idea of the pros/cons of each. If indeed, I'm the first to care, I may buy one of each and test them out. Just hoping to save myself the trouble.

EJackson