You should look into something like these instead of regular foam. http://www.etymotic.com/consumer/hearing-protection.html

I got a pair for EDC after realizing the foam earplugs were ruining the music. These reduce the volume with minimal muffling. Also pretty cheap considering they'll last a long time.

I picked them up at guitar center - they can help you get the right ones.

For those that use earphones a lot at work or on public transit or whatever, I also highly recommend Etymotic's in-ear isolating earphones. They are basically those musician's earplugs with a small driver in the tip. They reduce external noise on-par with foam plugs, so I can listen to my music at much lower volumes rather than cranking the volume of the music to drown out my surroundings. The sound quality is quite good as well. I have the hf3 model and they are by far better than any other earphones I've used that are sub $200.

Their headphones are great in terms of the quality of sound they produce, but their durability leaves a lot to be desired. I've used both the MC5's and HF5's and both ended up with shorting out on one side (HF5) or falling apart (MC5) on me within just a few months.

Interesting, mine have held up pretty well. My hf3s are going on four years old. I've used them on a near daily basis at work and fairly frequently under a motorcycle helmet. The exterior sleeve of the cords is starting to fray at the attachment points to the actual earphones, but they still work just fine. I expect I'll have to finally replace them within the next year or so, but I'll do it happily because they've outlived everything else I can remember in my daily rotation including two phones, a laptop, a wallet, and a backpack.

>The exterior sleeve of the cords is starting to fray at the attachment points to the actual earphones, but they still work just fine.

That's how it started with my MC5's. I put a piece of heat shrink tubing over the fray in order to postpone their demise but ultimately the plastic housing of the driver itself broke. The HF5's one day just stopped working out of one ear. I was never particularly rough with them or anything and only really used them at the office, but that was it for me.

I since moved on to a pair of Sennheiser MM 550-Xs but stopped using them because there was Bluetooth interference in my office (every one of about 70 desks in an open plan has a Bluetooth phone headset). Plus, the band messed with my hair and scalp.

Now I'm on a pair of Sennheiser CX 686G SPORTS that I originally bought for running but now use at the office. Sound's good enough and the build quality is superb since it was designed to be tossed about while doing active stuff.

I would gladly go back to Etymotic if they came out with something new in the $100ish price range, but for now I'll stick with Sennheiser. I've bought probably 6 different pairs of headphones from Sennheiser of varying styles in the past decade or so, and they all still work (with varying degrees of wear and tear). The only time a pair has broken on me was because I stupidly tried putting them on after they spent a night in a below-freezing car and didn't give them time to warm up, snapping the plastic headband, and their warranty service still replaced them with no questions asked.

Shure SE series are good for this as well. Sometimes I just have the earphones in with no music to cut background noise.

I'll corroborate. I'm a musician, and I can play music wearing Ety-Plugs! (I used to buy the ER-20 "baby blues" but the same object is now called "Ety-Plug.") They are far from perfect, but for the money, they're pretty darn good. (Freq response is not flat. However, it's way flatter than the foam plugs.)

Another vote for Eytmotic's earplugs from me. I like going to metal concerts but hate how loud they crank the volume since it muddles the sound. With these earplugs you can actual pick out individual instruments during the performance, plus the added benefit of not destroying your hearing.

I second this. I've mostly used datacenter earplugs over the years, which really mangle music. These earplugs are sold to musicians and are really great for music.

Absolutely. I have a pair of these and they go everywhere with me. Movies, concerts, sports events--anything with loud sound--these are perfect. They're small enough to tuck away in my purse so I never forget them.

It's insane how loud some movie theaters are nowadays. My first experience with this was three years ago in Hong Kong, watching "Pacific Rim". At first I thought it was a technical problem and looked around me to see how other guests react, but nobody seemed to mind, apart from our small group of Europeans. I seriously contemplated leaving because it was almost unbearably loud and I was worried about my hearing. Lately I've had similar experiences here in Austria, so it seems the trend is moving towards louder movies in cinemas, though I really hope they at least make an exception for children's movies, since it would be a shame to submit them to such a loud environment for hours at a time. (not that it isn't bad for grown-ups too, it's just especially worrying with children)

What gets me is how arbitrary sound levels seem. I'd expect sampling in the theatre to set the volume level to avoid hearing damage and make the levels comfortable but what appears, to me, to happen is the projectionist sets the sound level - so if you get a projectionist that is [seemingly] practically deaf then the volume level is far too high.

Went to a kids show, some disney tripe or other, volume was painful for me and made my youngest at the time cry ... movie theatres clearly have a thing about being loud but surely that doesn't help to make them a place anyone wants to be. Yes, I went out and spoke to someone and had the sound level lowered, it was still loud; I'm sure it was beyond the safe working volume set by Health & Safety Executive [UK] though. Amazed that it's not monitored and set automatically.

I always have these available around my house... I used to carry them with me everywhere.

I started using them in the 90s rave scene in SF. I would go to a party and would always bring earplugs with me, extra ones and hand them out. Especially to people who appeared to have had... a little too much. Sometimes handing a plastic bag of earplugs to someone who has had too much is a great thing from them as it helps them center a bit more.

I personally think that all concert ticket windows should hand these out with each ticket purchase/pickup.

I used to do this at Ska concerts in NY. I am a woodworker and always have a gigantic box of them at home, so it was easy to fill a ziplock.

One time I got grabbed by a bunch of bouncers and forcibly expelled from the venue - they thought the purple earplugs were drugs. Once they realized they were super apologetic and we had a good laugh about it.