Great all-purpose earplugs.
I use earplugs a lot.  It seems like I'm the first one to be bothered by loud sounds, like bands that overplay or blaring movie theater speakers.  These stay on my key chain and I'm never caught without them.  I'm also a musician.  So, trying to reduce damage to my hearing is a big deal.  The problem is that most earplugs aim to block all sound from entering your ear.  This creates a problem if, like me, you play a wind instrument, because the sound reverberates in your head and you end up not being able to hear anything BUT yourself.  The DownBeats earplugs let some sound safely through, which helps this problem.  In a movie for example, these don't muffle the sound, but rather helps take the &#34;edge&#34; off so that it's not painful.  In musical performances, they don't totally solve the issue I described, but it's better than other types I've used.  If I pull them out just a little (so that my ear isn't totally plugged) I can hear my own playing normally and the rest of the orchestra, but the volume of the other instruments is reduced to a comfortable level.  I went to a hearing specialist to see if there were better options and he said that more expensive &#34;musician's earplugs&#34; would block more sound and make the reverberation problem worse.  I showed him these earplugs and explained how I used them, and he he agreed that that was probably the best solution.  I think these are great.  Comfortable too.
Rating: 5 stars