Ear plugs for study in noisy environments?

dontstop

Does anyone do it? I'm thinking of buying a few different types to try them out for studying at home. So much noise

Any tips? Did it take time to get used to?

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DoubleNNs

I tried it a few years back. Sometimes it worked, but ti was annoying that sometimes I'd get a good seal and other times I wouldn't. And I hated taking them out and putting them back in.

Took a while to get used to. After a while I ended up not using them anymore and just hunted for quieter studying areas.

I also tried using noise cancelling headphones, but they definitely didn't work as well for me as earplugs when there was no sound playing, which sometimes were against the point.

JoJoCal19

When I worked from home several years back I had issues with hearing my kids early in the day so I bought some Bose QC15's. was a great investment.

CertifiedMonkey

I wear earmuffs. I could never get a good seal with ear plugs. Try wearing ear plugs and muffs if you really want dead silence, but then you can hear your heart and breath and it's distracting. Lol

ande0255

Yes I use my turtle beach noise-cancelling headphones if I'm reading in a public area with a tv on to entertain others in the room, but otherwise I have my physical rack of routers and switches humming next to me, almost puts me into a trance lol

NetworkNewb

JoJoCal19 wrote: »

When I worked from home several years back I had issues with hearing my kids early in the day so I bought some Bose QC15's. was a great investment.

I tried the Bose QC35s out recently and they are pretty insane for blocking out sound. I ended up going with just the Bose Soundlink headphones cause I didn't want the complete no noise the QCs did. But if I ever wanted to splurge on a pair of noise canceling ones, those Bose QCs is where I would head.

PJ_Sneakers

Noise cancelling earphones are great, even if you don't use them to listen to anything while you're studying. I'd have lost my mind without them. When I am studying at home sometimes I will wear headphones, put in soft ear plugs, and turn SimplyNoise.com up in the background. Completely drowns out everything around me, including the TV shows everyone is watching next to my desk.

I would try the headphones first, because the earplugs tend to get very uncomfortable for me during extended periods. But if you are trying to save money, get the super soft ear plugs from the drug store and check it out. They're not expensive.

dontstop

@CertifiedMonkey, @DoubleNNs I follow this guide for inserting them. You generally have to put them in a little deeper than you feel comfortable with otherwise the seal will fail. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3S6dthcSVIM

@NetworkNewb, @JoJoCal19 Can you use them even if you don't listen to music?

@PJ_Sneakers I found a set of the cheapo foam ones like those from the drug store and I'm trying them out at the moment. I watched the video I posted up above and I've got a pretty awesome seal. I'll report back with how they go.

RogueAdmin

Noise isolating ear buds work well. It is a personal choice for noise isolation; having an ambient noise (music sounds, nature sounds, or the particular din of a specific coffee shop or library); or, playing certain music. May take a while and several experiments to see what works. Too, certain moods may change your temperament and preference (e.g., good day vs bad day). Consider, too, wearing the ear plugs, ear buds, or headphones for hours & hours & hours.

Once taking care of sound there can be the remaining issues of visual distractions or vibration disturbance (slamming doors, deep bass, and so on). It can take weeks or months to re-adapt yourself to study in a preferred environment.

fwiw, found Ironman ear buds to work well. Bought several pairs over the years. Year over year they continue to make small, but valuable, improvements. Company sells _just_ the ear bud covers in two styles for a reasonable price (& lots of color variations). The covers alone are a big part of the value of these units—

yurbuds earbud Enhancers
Two styles: Enhancing and Occluding (again, preference and yada yada)
Caveat: Covers do need to be replaced after 3-6 months, as the material gets slippery-ish over time

JoJoCal19

dontstop wrote: »

@NetworkNewb, @JoJoCal19 Can you use them even if you don't listen to music?

Absolutely! That was actually the main reason I bought them. I didn't use them for drowning out the noise when listening to music until years later when traveling via airplane. In 2013 while working at home, I would try to study between 10 or 11-12pm but the house we were in was small and I could hear the kids playing in the living room, which was really distracting. So I invested in them and they worked perfectly.

BlackBeret

Noise cancelling headphones and the Pandora station "Classical for studying" turned low. I can't find a way to beat that combination for me.

DoubleNNs

I have the Sony MDR-1000X headphones. Based on this thread, seems like I should try out the Bose Quiet Comforts to see if I get better noise cancellation with those. Currently, my Sonys only work well to drown out ambient noise if I have something playing in them.

I also wear glasses 90% of the time (w/ contact lenses the other 10%). I've heard that noise cancellation doesn't work as well if you wear glasses -- maybe I need to experiment with that.

Hammer80

I use earplugs for study all the time, for me even the sound of AC is distracting so for me this works perfectly. The thing that I found is that majority folks don't have the proper seal which is why they can still hear sounds. The technique I use is to take a ear plug and twist it as tight as possible which then makes it thinner and then I quickly put it in my ears before it untwists that way i can get it as deep in as possible and then then they expand and block out the sound completely.

AverageJoe

Just be careful about not being able to hear things like fire alarms or kids falling off refrigerators...

JoJoCal19

AverageJoe wrote: »

Just be careful about not being able to hear things like fire alarms or kids falling off refrigerators...

I should have disclaimer'd my post: Only while the kids are under the wife's supervision

BlackBeret

DoubleNNs wrote: »

I also wear glasses 90% of the time (w/ contact lenses the other 10%). I've heard that noise cancellation doesn't work as well if you wear glasses -- maybe I need to experiment with that.

This is why I went with the Bose QC3 on-ear headphones instead of the over the ear style. No problems at all with the cushions not fitting right.

NotHackingYou

Another +1 for the Bose noise cancelling. I like the in-ear ones, but having used both, you can't go wrong with either kind.

dontstop

I tried out the QC35's in my local electronics store and damn was I impressed. Very pricy though AUD $399 wired and $499 for the Bluetooth

thatguy67

At my old place there was always some jerk with a lawnmower/leaf blower working (remarkable how consistent it was, like the landscapers arranged to have it going all throughout the day...but I digress) or a neighbor's dog barking. I ended up getting foam ear plugs as the first layer and then ear protectors on top of that (the kind those airport people have on the tarmac). Super effective.

paul78

thatguy67 wrote: »

...I ended up getting foam ear plugs as the first layer and then ear protectors...

Yeah - I do the same. I use a Bose QC for my second set and it's super effective. I used to spend a lot of time in very noisy data centers, and it can't be beat.

For those contemplating noise canceling headsets, I highly recommend the Bose QC series. I have a QC 15 which I've had for probably more than a decade. I'm actually on my second pair. I know that it's quite expensive but it was worth the investment. For those that are cost-conscience - the QC15 is discontinued but still available at a fair discount on places like Amazon.

One thing that is not advertised about the Bose (and I do not know if this is still true) - but if the QC needs to be replaced, you can do a swap for about USD$99. About 5-6 years ago, I had broke the QC when I sat on it during a plane flight. When I was perusing for a new QC15 at the Bose store, I had commented to the sales person that it was too expensive to buy a new one and if there was an upcoming sale otherwise I would purchase a competing product (I was basically trolling for a discount). That was when the sales person said that if I brought in my broken pair, they would sell me a new one for USD$99.