Minuendo Lossless Earplugs

Do these reduce the volume as a pair of earplugs should? yes, they do. They also sound very transparent and I can clearly hear how things sound while using them, nothing sticks out as skewed or wrong.

But... The lever for adjusting the volume is very loose and sloppy. I think that at this price point, they should at least have a nice feeling lever with some resistance that makes it stay where you want it. Perhaps it should even be stepped, as it's quite hard to match the setting for both ears. For comparison, I bought a pair of KNOPS way back through Kickstarter, which are way worse as an earplug for music goes, but has much a much nicer interface for adjusting volume that feels and looks premium.

The glue on my left earplug also failed, and it fell apart. From this, I know that the insides are nothing but a cheap feeling plastic housing with a plastic disk in the middle. The glue holding the magnets in also failed on one side as I pulled them apart one day. They are back in working order now thanks to good old super glue.

In summary, I feel this is a cheaply made item sold at a premium price. Functionally, they do the job. I'll even say that they are the best-sounding/most transparent earplugs I have ever used, but, the fit and finish leave a lot to be desired.

What's great: the fact that you can adapt the attenuation. Also a personal like: they do not attenuate hard, it's quite subtle. This means you still have a good perception of what your instrument and the band is doing.

The bad: they rattle at the open setting and so close to your ear you definitely get annoyed. The small magnet that holds the 2 plugs together when you have the around your neck already came out after day 2 (is a good glue that hard to find these days?). Only the foam plugs fit.

I'm keeping them, as they do the job. If you are a potential buyer: wait untill version 2.0

I managed to keep these working for 20 months with a lot of repairs and awkward workarounds, but now they have broken irreparably.

First one of the magnets came off, so I glued it back on. Then one of the ear tips started coming off and getting stuck in my ear. I found that if I pressed my finger on the tip while I was pulling it out of my ear, that would make it come out properly most of the time, but not always. Sometimes the tip would come off and fall on the floor, but by luck I managed to find it again each time. Eventually, of course, luck always runs out.

Then the other ear tip started coming off in the same way as the first one.

Then one of the plugs completely fell apart into three pieces. I glued it back together.

I used these ear protectors twice after that. The second time was today. After I had finished playing, I let them stick together with the magnets as usual around my neck. When I tried to take them off, one of the magnets ripped off the other one, along with part of the filter assembly. The membrane is now torn and the thing is therefore beyond repair.

If these things had been amazing in other ways, I might have felt differently about this, but the truth is that the frequency response was not as even as the manufacturers claimed. They would also have a habit of wiggling loose, meaning that the amount of protection I got turned out to be fairly random. As for the attenuation controls, in the end I never needed any more than the minimum. I had been hoping that they would allow me to reduce the attenuation much further so that I could hear verbal instructions in between blasts of percussion, but they didn't. So that feature that had been one of the reasons I had payed big money for these things turned out to be useless.

The only advantage these things had over other in-ear ear protectors I have owned in the past was the cord because it stopped me losing the things when they fell out of my ears (which did happen a few times). In other words, I spent €140 on this poorly made crap when I could have got just as good for €20. Big waste of money.