Audiofiles. Ever found yourself, like me, working in a high-noise area, and being stuck with crappy earbuds that couldn't block a fly with a greyhound windshield, let alone the background noise so you can hear your music?

Then this is a mod for you. I work for my parents, and run a shop-vac for many hours a day, plus other high-noise items. Its annoying to try and listen to my MP3 player with all the background interference! And if I crank the volume to bypass that, the music gets distorted. GAH! So what can we do about this? Well, now that you've read my reasons. Read HOW I fixed this problem, and adapt it for your own uses.


First, you need these items:


After that, crack open the headphone speaker cases with the pliers, and remove the speakers:

With this set, as you can see, the entire front part was glued to the speaker. This was actually good, in my situation. You may feel different.

Now onto the industrial hearing protectors. Make like a wonder-bra and LIFT and SEPARATE:


Insert the speaker, and with double sided tape, secure the wire in place:

After that, peel the other part of the tape off, and press the padding back into the casing.

Time: Five minutes.
Cost: Free, for me because I had everything here, but expect to pay about $35 to start from scratch.
Difficulty: (On a scale of , , , , , ( being the easiest, being the hardest.) This is a

Finished Product:

This mod is on instructables as well. Its a cool idea although I don't really have any need for one. good mod none the less.

They work beautifully. Let me just say that right now.

How do they work? I have thought about doing this before, but never actually got around to even getting parts. I bet they sound a LOT nicer now. Nice mod.
edit: well apparently they work beautifully.

Hmmm. I may have to try this. I've got enough junk headphones laying around, as well as ear protectors. It'd probably be cheaper than actually buying a pair of honest-to-goodness cans. Thanks for posting this!

No problem, Tibia. Let me tell you, though, it beats the hell out of paying $75-$500 for a mass-produced pair. Even if you don't have the parts, its half the cost. And there are so many different colors of hearing protectors, you don't have to go with flaming-red. I did cuz thats what I had.

KIPKAY DID IT FIRST!

Otherwise really nicely done mod, props.

Doesn't matter who did it first as long at it works, aye? I just did it cuz I was sick of not being able to hear my MP3 player, and posted it here because I figured you guys would enjoy it. Looks like I was right (For the most part, )

If you really want to be cheap/fast, couldn't you just stick in some earbuds and then put the hearing protection on?
I need some ear-muff style hearing protectors. I don't even try listening to music while mowing the lawn, probably kill your hearing twice as fast without something to block out the background noise.

I tried that. It works, but because the earbuds aren't held in, they flop around, giving a weird uneven sound to the music. And if you put them on, and then the protectors over them, they either hurt, or fall out of your ears.

That, and if you pulled the wire in moving around, it'd lift the padding a bit and let in sound, thus killing the effect of the song. And possibly ripping the wire out of the buds.

This was actually faster, because in trying to get them to work without modding, I spent half and hour or more getting them on right every time I put them on.

Yeah. I cannot live without music.

nice mod for blocking out ambient sound but i wouldnt exactly call it an audiophile mod, it blocks outside sound yes but it doesnt in any real way enhance the sound coming from your cheap generic headphone speakers good quality components make for good quality sound (eg if you had good headphones they WOULDNT distort at high volume) but im sure it did help some, of course you could have gotten the same effect buying some good quality in ear earbuds, you can get sennheiser cx300s or any number of good name brand earbuds for under 30$ on ebay

The sennheiser cx300s are amazing I use them when I'm n the go.

eww in ear, earbuds.

my $10 JVC Gumies are perfectly fine thank you, allot more comfy than having a earbud stabbed into your ear canal.

and cmon the plug isn't even gold plated on the cx300s, the JVC Gumys are gold plated I believe anything more than $40 for a pair of earbuds is ridiculous no matter their quality

well if you dont like in ear (not my style either) then sennheisser has the PX200 and px100 headphones. or you could go uber expensive and get grados or somethig lol

Actually, thats where your wrong. Because the headphones aren't actually touching my ears anymore, it gives the sound a proper reverberation chamber. Which gives you better sound (Example: Bose radio uses a reverb chamber to get better sound. Same thing, only smaller.).

I was truly shocked when I turned them on the first time and it sounded as if it was coming out of a pair of $500 stereo speakers.