Google SilentEar its a type of earplug, very effective. About $10 or £5. Not sure about the vibrations bit, but people have to routinely grab my shoulder to grab my attention, as I can't hear any noise or voice when I have them on.
At first I read it as "Google SilentEar" and wondered why Google started to produce earplugs :).
I used just ordinary worker-protection earplugs when there was some very noisy construction work going on in my building. These were just simple shapes made from memory foam. Very cheap and very effective.
How about noise canceling headphones? Bose makes them, but I think there are cheaper alternatives. I haven't tried them, but I would be interested in comments.
I've had Bose QC2s for about 4-5 years now and it might be the $300 I've ever spent. I worked for several years in an office with an open floorplan and without my headphones, any time someone in the office had a conversation it would distract me. With them, I could completely zone out and get stuff done. The active noise canceling was only part of it, just the fact that they completely wrap around your ears makes a difference. There are obviously cheaper ones that do that, but I don't think they are as comfortable as the QC2.
I'm very happy with a pair of Philips noise canceling headphones that I purchased for $60 a couple of years ago. They work best for drowning out air conditioning and fan noise, but since they're full size, they make everything quieter even without the noise cancellation activated.
I work in an open plan office and people often have to yell or throw things at me to get my attention.
I used the QC2s for a couple years when I was traveling the poker circuit. I liked them a lot at the time. They do greatly reduce certain types of noise. (You can Google for why anything sucks or doesn't work and find results, it doesn't mean much.)
Then another player introduced me to Shures. I've now owned a few sets (most currently http://tinyurl.com/8eyhck) and I would never go back.
The best way I can quantify how much better they are is to say that on a plane, with the QC2s, I would have my volume at 17 (out of 20) but with the Shures it's at 10. And the difference when considering non-ambient noise is even greater. With these in and no music, you can't hear people talking to you from the same room.
They're also significantly less bulky, and more durable. The QCs crack easily, and really require a hard case if you're traveling with them at all. I did have a pair of Shures where the earbuds separated, but they honored the warranty even though it was a year out of date and even sent me a newer, significantly more expensive model as a replacement.
On the other hand, I also had a pair fall out of my pocket, which is $400 lost in an airport.
Hearing people talking with the QC2s is a feature -- they equalize the noise canceling to cancel out engine noise but allow you to still hear people.
What the QC2s have going is comfort. The high end earphones, namely the Shure and Etymotic and at the highest end, custom in-ear monitors offer superior noise isolation with sound quality comparable to the best in existence.
You can get Etymotic ER-4Ps for $174 on Amazon. They're comparable to the highest end Shure earphones. The Ety's will have less visceral bass.
The Etymotic's just don't have the range that Shures do. With the Shures, it's a little jarring to hear that sort of bass without simultaneously feeling it in your gut, the way you would from a speaker. It's that great.
Man, that's weird. I just snagged a link from the page.
EC530s. That little PTH dongle is nice if you find yourself often needing to switch to hearing conversations (if you're at work for instance) but I never really found it to be worth the effort.
I have a pair, and they _do_ work. Just not 100%. More like 70-80%, and certain kinds of noise are filtered out better than others. So they might not be a panacea for the OP's noise problem, but they help more than regular headphones.
Earplugs are great for some sounds... but a subwoofer rumble (esp. in old multistory buildings) is almost felt more than heard. Then, the fact the earplugs are blocking all other frequencies can make the rumble even more noticeable.
