Earplugs
There are three main options you can go with earplugs.
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Custom earplugs
Pros - Fits perfectly if you can get it done correctly. Excellent quality.
Cons - Expensive. Your ear will change over time and you’ll need a new pair. Your ear may change so much it’s hard to be fit correctly. -
Off the shelf ‘audio/musicians’ earplugs
Pros - Best audio quality for the money. Affordable.
Cons - Not as much protection as you might need, especially for clubs/raves. -
Foam industrial earplugs
Pros - The strongest AND cheapest protection you can get.
Cons - The worst sound quality you will get.
My strategy
I keep off the shelf musicians plugs and foam industrial with me any time I’m at a show.
Why? To be honest, I’m throwing the foam boiz in if I’m not trying to be exposed to the music/dj at that point. And I use the lighter ones when I want to enjoy the music.
Why not always wear the musicians plugs? It’s great if you can tolerate the decibels. Let’s talk about NRR and what you can actually deal with.
NRR Explained
The math: take the NRR rating number and subtract 7. Then take that number and divide by 2. That’s the number of decibels that will actually be reduced (assuming perfect fit).
An example: If my earplugs have a NRR of 23. Using the equation above, I subtract 7 from the NRR rating to get 16. Now I’ll divide that by 2 to get my final answer of 8db of level reduction.
What’s an SNR? One main difference between NRRs and SNRs is geography. In the U.S. NRR ratings are used. Within the European Union and the U.K., SNR ratings are typically used. Another key difference is that the SNR ratings actually tend to be a few decibels higher than NRRs.