When I go to the movies, I find them painfully loud. I think it’s just me; my husband isn’t bothered, nor are the kids. The people around me don’t seem disturbed. I’ve tried Hearos earplugs, but they don’t seem to work. Would noise canceling earphones help? Does anybody have any recommendations? I know I’ll look like an idiot, but I can’t take the noise! What’s surprising is that I have some hearing loss. You’d think I’d like loud movies, but it actually hurts.
I use** foam rubber** earplugs all the time. This is the kind you want. Squish them down and put them deep in your ears and when they fluff out, they block out most everything. I get them at Walgreen’s. You can also find them in the hunting department at Academy and Wal-Mart. I completely agree about movies and the loudness. It’s painful. I have used them at the movies, especially during the previews.
But I also use earplugs when I’m working at home alone just to block out noise. I sleep with them (and an eye mask), and nap with them, too. If I have to work in a noisy room where others are meeting or talking, I use them. They’re fabulous on an airplane because they block out the noise of the engines, but you can hear the announcements perfectly.
I also have hearing loss and am very sensitive to noise. I just got $3,600 hearing aids by Oticon about three months ago, and frankly, I’m hearing TOO much. The world is a very noisy place! They do help me understand speech because the top notes are what I’m missing. But when I get home, I take them out and it’s blissful to be able to turn down the volume on the outside world.
Do not be concerned about how you look!! Who gives a rat’s ass??? Take care of your hearing. I’m guessing there are other people who are bothered but are letting vanity stop them. I don’t see how any kind of headphones could work as well as these deep foam plugs.
I find silicone ear plugs to be easy to use and quite effective. However, it’s possible they’ll block so much sound that you won’t hear the movie.
One solution would be to go to either smaller, older “art-house” theaters or the cheaper, second-run theaters (a.k.a. “the dollar movies”), which in my experience don’t often have high-end sound systems and thus aren’t capable of generating the volumes of (usually) bigger, (usually) newer cineplexes.
Here’s a different idea…
Most theatres have “hearing assist devices”, AKA headphones. These headphones don’t cover your ear, but they do reduce the noise level. You can then use the volume control on the headphones themselves to get a comfortable level of sound for you.
J.
It’s not just you. Celtling and I only go to the local second-run theater for this reason, and the last time even that was too loud.
It’s an investment, but Etymotics makes “Musician’s Earplugs”. They are custom molded to your ears to very effectively block out sound, and they have replaceable inserts rated in different levels of sound reduction to let in a specific amount of sound. The main thing is that they reduce sound equally at all frequencies. Most earplugs block out high frequencies but do little for bass, so you wind up with sound that is quieter, but very muffled. Additionally, with an adapter, a pair of Musician’s Earplugs can be used as custom earmolds for their excellent and very highly rated earphones.
Foam earplugs do work well - I used to wear them to sleep all the time - but I got a wicked ear infection in both ears that way. Apparently even though the foam is soft, it makes microscopic abrasions in your ear canal that can get infected. At least that’s what my doc told me. Shouldn’t be a problem with just a movie now and then, though.
I use the foam plugs and they work well at movies. I use them for sleeping as well because I sleep days when my neighborhood is very noisy. The only problem I have with them is my cat thinks they are toys of the gods and will steal them every chance he gets, sometimes right out of my ears.
They also have a non-custom version for $10. http://www.amazon.com/ETYMOTIC-RESEARCH-ER20BP-Fidelity-Plugs/dp/B000CC1RPS
The last time I went to the movies, everything had been fine until the ads began, at which point everybody in the theater went “OW!” as our hands jumped to cover our ears. FTR, the movie was one of those with lots of explosions and the apparent ages went from somewhere around 11 to “80 if he’s a day”; I found it hilarious that not a single person there belonged to the theoretical target group of “male, teens-20s”. As I was leaving, I remarked on the absurdly loud volume to the ticket-taker and saw one of the people in the half-a-dozen-oldster-couples group tell the people in the concession stand and ask whether it “might be best if we fill in a suggestions form?” Hopefully that theater will get the message 
I have these earplugs I bought to shower with (doctor’s orders) and which are quite good at canceling noise too, methinks I’ll try bringing them to the movies next time I go. I keep the left and right plugs separate so that if I get an infection they won’t transmit it.
Although people are having this problem in a movie theater, the question isn’t actually about movies, so I’m moving the thread to IMHO.
twickster, Cafe Society moderator