I had a tough time with conversations in noisy rooms before, and I haven't noticed much difference in the almost four years I've been playing the bagpipes. For a long time I never used earplugs even indoors, but I have started to use them now. I've been concerned about my son's hearing (an 11 year old drummer) so I bought about 10 sets of musician's earplugs and they seem to work very well. I still don't wear the earplugs when I play outdoors or in a large auditorium. I would guess that about half our band wear earplugs. About 25% wear earplugs all the time and the other 25% only wear them indoors.