I've always wanted to buy some good earplugs to protect my hearing from noisy environments (es. near public transport in the city). Does anyone have a product they recommend?
I own the "Etymotic Research ER20 ETY-Plugs", about $13 on Amazon Prime. They're much more comfortable than the cheap foam ones you can buy, they actually stay in your hear, and the tube means that you can still hear high frequencies. They reduce the surrounding volume rather than attempt to mute it. This makes them great for concerts.
There are also much more expensive concert earplugs for musicians, which do an even better job at preserving the spectrum, but I'm not that picky.
I have the same ones. They are great, although I find them getting uncomfortable if wearing them for an extended period of time. Then again, I haven't found a set of earplugs for which that is not the case, so take that with a grain of salt.
These are great for concerts (assuming your ear canals are long enough - these are far too long for mine) but not so great for a flight situation like in the article. For blocking out as much noise as possible, foam plugs are much better than these.
This is the best advice in the thread. $5 will get you 20 pairs (they're required to put the noise reduction on the package, so check that to be sure you're getting good ones) and just take them with you everywhere.
I get the beige "Hearos" off Amazon and they seem rather comfortable while providing a fair amount of volume reduction. They won't completely block out people being rude on flights, but they did well enough that I was able to sleep nicely for a few hours on a recent flight.
They're cheap and come in packs of 20. So I stash a handful in various places so I always have some accessible. In particular I keep a few in my essential medicine bottles since I'll have those while traveling. I find I can reuse them a few times, but if they feel off or dirty the cheapness means I don't hesitate grabbing a new pair.
The bit that goes in your ear is also shorter than the Etymotics, which is good for me as my ear canal seems to be too short for the ER20s to fit. I tried about ten different ear plugs and the DownBeats were the only decent-quality ones that I could comfortably wear for hours.
There are also much more expensive concert earplugs for musicians, which do an even better job at preserving the spectrum, but I'm not that picky.