Keeping ear protection handy means I am much more likely to wear them when mowing the yard, operating power tools, or power tuning the KZ1000 out in the garage. When you defend against all the high SPL's you can avoid, your sound system will sound consistently better.
When "hammered" by spl's, the muscles in the inner ear respond protectively by tightening up. How long they take to fully relax is not clearly understood. This is why after "blasting a song or two" and then listening at a lower level, the system will sound like crap for a while, to your ears. Till they readjust and relax to the lower sound level again...Sam