If you’re young, carefree and don’t appreciate the value of your hearing, you might want to spend some time talking to (shouting at) a grandparent who’s hard of hearing. Or, better yet, talk to someone in their 40’s who has trouble hearing because they spent too much time at Bon Jovi concerts, or working with power tools and weren’t aware of the importance of hearing protection. I definitely have valued my hearing in recent years, but I also hate most earplug options. The earplugs with little rubber flanges always slip out resulting in a NRR rating of zero, and the foam plugs you roll up and let expand in your ears leave me feeling like I’m entombed in my own head and oblivious to human interaction. I have used a lot of different earplugs, but over the last year I’ve been testing what I feel might be the best accessible and affordable earplug solution on the market, the SureFire Sonic Defenders. Read More