[dknightd]

I agree. it makes a HUGE difference. There is no point in buying low noise
equipment if you listen to it in a high noise environment!

 

[edstrelow]

This is a problem even with headphones as most phones are open back and let in lots of noise. Of course some iem's will block out a lot of noise and I used to listen to old Koss electrostatics, ESP and ESP 9 phones, which blocked a lot of sound.

Of course if you have bass sounds booming through your environment not even a good set of sealed phones will keep that out.