Comply NR10 Earphones get you closer to a noiseless headset without the bulkiness and at a fraction of the cost. Made by a company called Hearing Components, the “passive” (meaning no batteries required), earbud-style units come with disposable foam tips that you screw on. They allegedly offer 48 decibels of noise reduction; what that translated into for me was a removal of plane hum, an inability to hear the conversations of folks behind and in front of me throughout the flight, and the significant lessening a baby’s incessant wailing, all before I plugged the earphones into my mp3 player. The sound quality for music is not nearly as crisp and clear as with the “active” noise-canceling headphones, but the volume is adjustable, and once the music is on, you can’t hear anything else. The foam conformed well to the insides of my ears and was quite comfortable; in fact, I liked it far better than traditional earbuds and didn’t have the usual sore outer ear that I do with headphones that cover the whole ear. The downside is that in changing the screw-on foam covers, you can’t help but squish down the foam, so then you have to wait for it to puff back up again so it will fill your ear canal, which can take about 20 minutes or so. The foam tips come in slim and standard size, and the whole unit comes with a small travel pouch. $79.95 for the earphones and one pair slim-size Comply Foam Tips; $17.95 3-pair pack Foam Tips,
Kyle Wagner
