Precisely what I keep telling people.

If you need to crank up the coms to drown out wind noise then it's no different from having a loud helmet in the first place.

I have been using cheap china BT units (under 50) and I hear my music just fine even with ear plugs on. Just start off with a quieter helmet and your ears will thank you.

I'm using 3m1250, the yellow ones. If 1100 dont work for you then the 1250 is not going to work as it filters a few dB more.

But like I said, my rpha70 is a quiet helmet. So my cheap coms work just fine. Honestly, they could be louder but that's beside the point. But wait, don't you have the rpha70 also or someone else in the forum?

I'm using the cheap X6 (50rm on discount) and some generic no brand one for 40rm...they are already scrapping the barrel bottom for cheap helmet BT. The X6 are louder, but I can still hear both well enough for music and nav at speed with the 3m 1250s.

The important takeaway is, if your helmet gives you 110db of wind noise, you need to get the speakers over that for you to be able to hear it. And if you are cranking music to over 110db on a 2 hour ride, I can imagine the tinnitus that follows after.