If I want to listen to music, I'll get the CD version and listen to it in a quiet room on my nice headphones.
I go to concerts to mosh, buy signed CDs/T-shirts/posters/pins, and meet other fans.
Meeting people requires talking. Earplugs, like the headphones I wear in the office, are a social signal to tell people "don't talk to me". I'm well aware of the dangers to my health, but I've met too many good friends at shows to stop trying to socialise with people who obviously share something in common (taste in music). I'm shy around total strangers, so it's at common-interest events like concerts where I have a starting point to talk about, and thus meet people.
> Meeting people requires talking. Earplugs, like the headphones I wear in the office, are a social signal to tell people "don't talk to me".
That's a hell of a sacrifice to make based on something that's almost purely your imagination. You can have custom earplugs made for $140 that are clear and almost unnoticeable, which will block the majority of damaging frequencies while still allowing you to hear talking pretty well. I promise, no one is going to stop talking to you when you have them in.
The isolation I've experienced from hearing loss is so profound and damaging that it's painful to see how casually you treat it. I'd pay any amount of money to get my hearing back.
Even the earplugs you can get for around 20 protect your hearing enough with their 12dB reduction, and there are models do not noticeably change the sound. Plus: most are simply transparent plastic and hardly noticeable at all. I wear some of these for years now, and I usually keep them in my ears the whole evening once the first band started since you hardly notice them, and talking is still very much possible...
>Earplugs, like the headphones I wear in the office, are a social signal to tell people "don't talk to me".
Interesting that you see it this way. I usually always wear custom-moulded earplugs at concerts, and I've never intended or encountered this signaling.
Have you considered high-fidelity custom earplugs? They're rather inconspicous and the sound is much less muffled than with plain old foam plugs. You can carry on a conversation with them, though obviously not as easily as without. I had some made probably a decade ago and they're still going strong. You can get different filter strengths too.
