It will come as no surprise to our readers that I like to listen to music while I ride. Sure riding on a spirited Sunday-morning zoom-fest needs no mood music; that's what a snarly exhaust note is for. But what about that long drone on the interstate? Or during your daily slog of a commute? These moments call, nay, scream for some musical diversion to lift your bored and weary mind and elevate your spirit. Or at the very least entertain you.

I've tried standard earbuds and they suck at keeping out the wind noise. Then I have to crank the volume on the Mp3 player to 11 just to hear my music; so I'm killing my ears with music AND wind noise, fantastic. I've also tried custom molded earplugs which were good until the wire fell out; handlebar mounted speakers which were fine as long as you weren't going faster than 35; and ANR earbuds which work so-so to block the wind noise when no music is playing.

I think I may have solved all my music and wind noise issues though. Well I didn't solve them, Comply solved them with their NR-10 headsets.

Comply is a big name in the “save your hearing” game and makes all kinds of neat and nifty inserts that will help block out / tone-down any unwanted noises. The NR-10's are basically an earbud speaker mounted into a casing that allows Comply to put a hollowed-out foam ear insert over a stem. Seems simple enough and like most simple ideas it works well in execution.

Comply claims a rating of 29 decibels on average and, while I don't have the equipment to verify or dispute this claim, I can say that number might be a bit low when it comes to wind noise; at least the wind noise that my Bell Star creates. I usually wear earplugs that have an NRR rating of 32 and with no music playing the NR-10's are at LEAST as quite as those earplugs; and possibly a bit quieter. The best thing is that they are almost as comfortable to wear as those standard foam earplugs as well.

All this wind-noise-blocking is good but what about the sound reproduction? Will it sound like I'm in a concert hall or trash can?

I'm not a complete audiophile but I am just enough of one to be driven nuts when a speaker deviates wildly from the sound it should be producing. I've been on a dubstep kick for the past few months (lots of bass and highs) and so I was quite pleased to find that the Comply NR-10's do an admirable job of bass reproduction. Checking out a variety of other music genres allowed me to hear that the highs and mids also come through much clearer than (or at least as clear as) any other earbud I've tried as well – and that includes some pretty high-end stuff.

All the noise reduction and sound quality in the world will be useless if the earbud pops out of your ear every time you put on your helmet. Thankfully the NR-10's don't have that issue. I was surprised to find that even with my brand new (meaning tight) Bell Star I had no issues slipping the helmet on without dislodging the earbuds.

As an aside, the NR-10 come with a gold plated 3.5mm jack and an inline volume control that has just enough tension not to slide around without your assistance.

What we have here is a high quality pair of earbuds paired with some very good passive noise reduction earplugs which results in well above average sound quality, above average noise reduction, and a very comfortable fit.

To get your own pair of NR-10's check out Comply's website here:  www.complyfoam.com/products/NR-10/

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