Filter the sound, don’t block it.

Eargasm is an American earplug brand based in Southern California. Its about page says it “started with the idea in 2015 that the hearing protection space was due for a refresh,” and names Ryan Parry as the founder: “Ryan founded Eargasm in 2015,” it says, describing him as closely involved in the company’s day-to-day running. We could not find an independent account of the founding, so we give those details as the company’s own. The terms of service on its website say the store is operated by Strand Industries, LLC.

The brand’s starting point, as it tells it, was a complaint about foam earplugs. Foam plugs, the company says, are “designed to block and muffle sound,” which suits sleeping or studying but not the many situations in which people still want to hear what is going on around them, only more quietly. Its answer was the High Fidelity Earplugs, which it says “filter, rather than block out, sound to a manageable level,” and which it describes as its best-seller.

The earliest version of the brand we could find online is a 2016 shop at eargasmearplugs.com, preserved by the Internet Archive. It sold one product, the High Fidelity Earplugs, for $19.95, under the line “The Revolution in Hearing Protection Has Arrived” and the slogan “Your Volume Knob on Life.” The page described “innovative attenuation filters” that reduce noise evenly, a “discreet, low profile and triple flange design,” and a free aluminium keychain carrying case, and suggested uses from concerts and band practice to motorcycles and aeroplanes.

From one earplug to a range.

Eargasm says it first imagined its earplugs for concerts and band rehearsals, then found customers using them in factories, noisy restaurants and almost anywhere someone wanted to “turn the volume down.” In response, according to its about page, it added Smaller Ears Earplugs for narrower ear canals, Slide Earplugs with adjustable attenuation, Aviation Earplugs for flying and Squishies as a softer alternative to foam. It later moved into custom-fit products — in-ear headphones and earplugs made to the shape of the wearer’s ear — and says customers can take their ear impression with its own iPhone app, the Eargasm Ear Scanner.

The core product has stayed recognisable. The current High Fidelity Earplugs, listed at $47.95, come with standard and small silicone shells, a pair of filters and an aluminium carrying case that clips to keys or a bag. The company gives their rating as 16 dB NRR, with an expected reduction of 21 dB; a MAX version added in 2026 is rated at 21 dB NRR with up to 27 dB of expected reduction, the company says, and separate High dB filters are sold for the original shells. These are the company’s figures, and the NRR is the United States’ labelled noise reduction rating rather than a test of our own.

Much of the brand’s look comes from colour. Its listings include colourways named Blackout, Hyperviolet, Camofield and a Pink Edition, a transparent “X Edition,” coloured connector cords and carabiners, and festival editions of the High Fidelity Earplugs bearing the names of events such as EDC, Beyond Wonderland, Warped Tour, Sick New World and Portola.

Hearing protection becomes a consumer brand.

The seven brands in this group all sell earplugs, but they come from very different places and decades. The oldest is German and more than a century old; the newest names arrived in the 2010s, selling online and, in one case, through crowdfunding. What they share is a product people put in their ears to turn the world down, sold to concert-goers, musicians, sleepers and travellers.

Three are new names built around filtered plugs for music and nightlife. Loop is a Belgian company founded in 2016 by the childhood friends Maarten Bodewes and Dimitri O., according to Wikipedia and the company, and CNBC reported in 2023 that it was headquartered in Antwerp. Eargasm says it is based in Southern California and was founded in 2015 by Ryan Parry. Earasers belongs to Persona Medical of Florida, whose president, Don Campbell, designed the soft silicone plug, the company says.

Two date from the 1990s. Alpine Hearing Protection says it was founded in the Netherlands in 1994 as a pioneer of reusable filtered earplugs for the general public. In 2025 the Belgian investor Gimv announced it was taking a majority stake. ACS says it was established in 1994 to make custom-fit hearing protection, and describes itself as a privately owned UK company that also makes in-ear monitors.

The last two are the outliers. Flare Audio began as a three-person pro-audio maker in a garden garage on England’s south coast, it says, before crowdfunding its Isolate ear protector; Companies House lists Flare Audio Limited, of Lancing in West Sussex, as incorporated in 2007. Ohropax was founded in Berlin in 1907 by the pharmacist Maximilian Negwer, is still run by his family, and makes its wax plugs in Wehrheim, near Frankfurt.

This guide sets out what can be checked about each brand — who founded it, who owns it, and what it says about where its products are made — and marks clearly what rests only on the company’s own word.

A name, a domain and a direct-to-consumer brand.

Eargasm is a direct-to-consumer business: its website is a Shopify store, and its about page describes a small team and a local warehouse in Southern California that handles shipping. The company says its earplugs have been used by more than a million customers, and its product pages say the High Fidelity Earplugs were named a top pick for concerts and musicians by CNN Underscored and chosen as a POPSUGAR pick; we give those as its claims, as we could not open the original pages. We could not find a statement of where the earplugs are manufactured on the company pages we checked.

The brand’s name is its most obvious asset and also a source of confusion online. The domain eargasm.com predates the earplug company: Internet Archive captures from 2016 and 2017 show a parked page offering the domain for sale, while the earplug brand traded at eargasmearplugs.com. Captures of eargasm.com carrying the earplug brand’s about page date from 2021. Anyone researching the brand should check which site an older reference points to.

Independent notice of the brand is limited but real. In October 2023, CNBC Make It named Eargasm as a U.S. rival to the Belgian company Loop Earplugs, whose ring-shaped earplugs had by then turned high-fidelity hearing protection into a fashion accessory. Where Loop built its identity around a shape, Eargasm has leaned on a provocative name, bright colours and festival tie-ins.

For a design guide, Eargasm shows how a single, easily explained product — an earplug that turns the volume down instead of blocking it — can carry a brand through a growing range. Compare Etymotic, the hearing lab whose musicians’ earplugs set the pattern for filtered plugs, and Westone. For this guide we use teal, orange and violet with a sans, an unofficial interpretation; no product or logo is reproduced.

Keep Eargasm’s identity on hand — save it to a board in the Made Good inspiration library.