I like mine. I have tinnitus and its important to me to be able to dial down loud music and movies, without the sound getting muffled and unintelligible. Mine are custom molded with removable 20db etymotics filters; they came with solid filters too that you can switch when you just want to block sound and don’t care about fidelity.

Before these I had some etymotics 30$ musician’s earplugs and they never worked very well. With them in I couldn’t make out the words a singer was singing, and always felt like I was missing out on the music.

My GF has a pair of 20$ musicians plugs she likes just fine (“downbeats”), and she doesn’t feel like they ruin the sound. So maybe custom molded isn’t as important as a good filter?

For sleeping, shooting, or settings where hearing isn’t important, the foam ones are fine.

Dunno. But I have purchased the kind for music, back when I was in a band. Much better than the foam kind. They also attenuate sound evenly rather than the drill thinking of adults in a Charlie Brown Christmas special. Great for concerts.

Regular foam 3m earplugs, or the lighter river ones on a string are as good or better than the custom molded ones, when properly inserted. They’ll down out loud sounds and you’ll still be able to have a perfectly normal conversation with someone standing next to you.

Most people aren’t wearing them correctly. Custom plugs tend to have this long tail that goes in to your ear canal, foam plugs should go as deep.

For a couple of bucks for a hundred of these things it’s hard to imagine that the expense for a custom pair is even remotely worth it.

Oh yes. I waited for so long to try, and won’t go back now.