Results
Summary
As of July 2026, this procedure has been conducted on 57 earplug conditions (each setting of a device is a condition) across 32 earplugs.
- Average perceptual loudness reduction score: 4.0 (s.d. 0.6)
- Average sound quality score: 2.6 (s.d. 1.3)
- The two metrics are negatively correlated (), indicating a trend toward worse sound quality with increasing loudness reduction. However, the relatively low correlation strength () indicates that it is possible to alter one dimension and not the other.
- Median SoundScore: 3.7 (s.d. 0.6)
- Expert Choice winners: 20 conditions (SoundGrade "A") received the Expert Choice award
Score Distributions
Table 2. Summary results. First two columns show how SoundScore maps to SoundGrade. Remaining columns show distribution of metrics across the 55 scored earplug conditions (2 of the 57 tested conditions are still awaiting published scores).
| SoundScore | SoundGrade | SoundGrade (Evaluations) | Loudness Reduction (Evaluations) | Sound Quality (Evaluations) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4.0--5.0 (inclusive) | A | 20 (36%) | 32 (58%) | 11 (20%) |
| 3.0--<4.0 | B | 32 (58%) | 20 (36%) | 8 (15%) |
| 2.0--<3.0 | C | 2 (4%) | 3 (5%) | 16 (29%) |
| 1.0--<2.0 | D | 1 (2%) | 0 (0%) | 17 (31%) |
| 0.0--<1.0 | F | 0 (0%) | 0 (0%) | 3 (5%) |
SoundGrades are assigned from SoundScores rounded to one decimal using half-up rounding.
Full Results
Detailed per-device results and listening simulations are available at hearadvisor.com.
Conflict of Interest Disclosures
- Andrew Sabin Ph.D. is a scientific advisor to HearAdvisor LLC and is also employed by a company that participates in the hearing device market. He does not directly evaluate products associated with Bose Corporation.