Patent ID: 8923523

Claim:
A pair of selective filtering earplugs, comprising: an audio player, having: a microphone for receiving environmental sounds; a circuit for converting the received environmental sounds to a digital signal representing the received environmental sounds; a first memory for storing the digital signal representing the received environmental sounds; a second memory for storing a database of pre-approved sound signals; a digital signal processing circuit for comparing the digital signal representing the received environmental sounds with the database of pre-approved sound signals; a third memory for storing digital audio files; and a transmitter circuit for selectively transmitting an audio signal representative of a selected one of the digital audio files, wherein transmission of the audio signal representative of the selected one of the digital files is ceased when the received environmental sounds match a pre-approved sound signal in the database, the transmitter circuit transmitting the digital signal representing the received environmental sounds when the received environmental sounds match the pre-approved sound signal in the database; a pair of sound-blocking earplugs, at least one of the earplugs being a filtering earplug having: a housing adapted for insertion into an ear canal of the user, the housing being sized and shaped to completely block environmental noise; a receiver for receiving the audio signal and the digital signal representing the received environmental sounds; a circuit for converting the audio signal and the digital signal representing the received environmental sounds into an analog audio signal; and a speaker in communication with the converting circuit to play the analog audio for the user.