Having used Etymotic in-ear headphones for well over a decade, I won't get on a plane without them. As in, I once drove back to the office at 4am the morning b

Having used Etymotic in-ear headphones for well over a decade, I won't get on a plane without them. As in, I once drove back to the office at 4am the morning before an early flight because I realized I'd left them there. Assuming you've got a good fit, they act as -25dB earplugs with no music playing. Playing music at a moderate volume over that provides a huge masking effect[1] to external sound. Cranky babies, loud talkers, aircraft noise, etc. are all muted to nonexistent or at least very tolerable levels. About the only thing that gets through in my experience is the "bass effect" of a child kicking the back of my seat... Other brands of in-ear monitors (IEMs) should work fine as well. The key is to ensure you use eartips that provide a good seal and comfortable fit. Most brands ship with different size tips, and you should make sure you can get replacements in your size. The eartips do wear out and need replacement with regular use. In my case, I mostly notice that they start getting oddly uncomfortable. [1] As in "psychoacoustic masking principle", also leveraged to "hide" quantization noise in lossy audio codecs, ala MP3, AAC, etc.