[AUDITORY] Ifrasubs ruin hearing protection use cases

[Matt Flax <flatmax@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Most modern large PA setups now include infrasubs (< 20Hz amplification) 
by default - and certainly most large venues do too.

This it turns out is a conundrum for hearing protection. For example my 
"flattened" ear plugs give 13 dB or more hearing protection, but they 
have a lower frequency limit. This means that I am still hearing 
un-attenuated low frequency music. This may not seem like a problem, 
however it suppresses the melodic (13 dB dampened) music when strong sub 
bass is present - to the point where it sounds like you are listening to 
gated sub bass with little else on top.

At this point I would like to steer this conversation away from a 
discussion on what "quality music is" and keep it on the track of 
suppression and if necessary then masking. Sometimes I feel that 
psychoacoustics is the statistical model (AI) of hearing.

As frequency tuning curves typically have lower slope for lower 
frequencies, the ear's physiology suppresses higher frequency signal 
power. In the psychoacoustics world the frequency spreading functions of 
masking models generate the upwards (frequency) spread of masking (as a 
shameless plug, see Figure 3 here : 
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Matthew-Flax/publication/3898361_Hybrid_auditory_masking_models/links/61dc0e7e4e4aff4a642f9514/Hybrid-auditory-masking-models.pdf)

Is this a commonly discussed issue yet ? I can't think of practical ways 
to improve the sound quality of "flattened hearing protection devices" 
at live venues with infrasubs, is anyone aware of any ?

Matt