If you can tolerate the in-ear physical sensation, Etymotic makes some fantastic earplugs for reducing noise. I similarly found even small noises to be distracting, and I couldn’t avail myself of earplugs or noise cancelling headphones because they also felt distracting. The clever thing that Etymotic did is design to reduce noise evenly across the spectrum, so it feels like turning the world’s volume knob down, rather than unevenly suppressing certain frequencies. Noise seems qualitatively less distracting with “the volume turned down” in this way, and the uneven suppression turned out to be the part that bothered me about other options. I consider myself sound-sensitive yet these things made a 14-hour flight in the same row as a crying baby quite tolerable (to both mine and the suffering parents’ relief). Your mileage may of course vary but this was a big QoL upgrade for me and it may be for you too.
replyIt's a good start, Etymotic makes some of the most uncomfortable earplugs (the most uncomfortable I've ever worn), they sound fine.. as long as you don't need to lie down or rest your head.
replyThe naming isn't great in the competition, but: Alpine, EarGasm, EarPeace, Loops are significantly better. Recent Alpine reviews suggest a material change - so maybe not them (haven't tried the new ones). They all come in different editions which is mostly about which frequencies they block/allow through.. loop is trying to push the price boundary (probably avoid, especially their "active" line).
All better than basic fluorescent foam earplugs though, easier to use and better sound blocking (the good audio ones allow you to speak/hear voices at close to normal volume in front of a 90dB sound stage)
I’ll have to check these out! Thank you!
replyAgreed. I'd love to have air purification (and air circulation to reduce CO2) without noise, to the extent possible.
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