My curiosity was piqued so I decided to investigate the ZEM hearing protectors. As a health and safety professional you can get a lot of information that might not be available to the buying public and I wanted to hear what the manufacturer had to say about the product and perhaps get some information in print.
One of the owners answered the phone and was very helpful. He spent half of an hour talking to me about the business and the technology and the developer. He also offered to send out a technical literature set for me to review. I was eager to get it to read more.
On Monday a package arrived and in it was a full set of technical literature about the ZEM, the theory and the developer. A pair of the ZEM hearing protectors was included. I tried them on while reading the material in the folder.
As has been said, they were light and comfortable. They also didn't seem to cut much of the sound, but there's not a lot to block with me sitting in my office and mild office sounds drifting down the hallway. Good thing I had brought a 9mm in to go to the range at lunch so that I could get a better idea of how well they worked.
Lunch rolled around and I headed to the range and gave them a try. I must admit that I was impressed. I was focused on whether I needed to get plugs out of my car when I cranked off the first 3 rounds, but there was no nasty ringing or startle from the sound of the Remington 9mm coming out of the Commander length barrel. That being the case I focused on my shooting. No detectable difference between my normal foam plugs and the ZEMS!
I'll want to try them against plugs and NRR 20 muffs stacked on top of each other when I've got the time, but right now my preliminary opinion is that the ZEMs are as easy to wear as muffs and nearly as effective as plugs.
I still advocate plugs and muffs together for shooting regardless of how comfortable these are.
