This is really interesting to me. I just bought a set of in-ear sound isolation earphones from Shure to counteract the background noise that’s in my gym, which is where I’m most likely to come into contact with other people’s unwelcome music (well other people’s is always unwelcome IMO). Music is really important to me and outside of the gym I listen to a lot of classical (am a music grad). There is NO classical music that can counter the leakage of other people’s cheap headphones. The frequencies and dynamics are just too varied. But these Shure ones are pretty good and really do isolate. They’re foam, like earplugs, and it also means you don’t have to listen to music at such a high volume.

On flights people often take off their headphones and leave them lying around without turning off the sound, so you get bits of film/music etc leaking everywhere.

I joined PipeDown a few years ago, the campaign to get rid of background music - their premise being that music is there to be listened to actively, not subjected to passively, like wallpaper. I agree with them 100%.

And I went to the Ting Tings, and they were great. :)

i live in hope..

and on a post related note; when my batteries die on my mp3 i still leave my earphones in on the bus for reasons i can’t understand. Make me feel right somehow.

@ Catherine - I know exactly how you feel and even go so far as to carry my MP3 player with me AND headphones for the fm radio in my phone, just incase! It’s also a way of getting away from the teenagers who insist on playing their Finglas chipmunk music on the loudspeaker on their phones. Eugh!