You’re entrance row on your favourite artist. The lights flash and the bass reverberates by means of your physique all night time lengthy. After the present is over, the adrenaline wears off, however one thing else lingers—a high-pitched ringing that definitely wasn’t a part of the set. You sweep it off and the ringing fades the subsequent day. However what if it didn’t?
That’s the query Maarten Bodewes—co-founder of Loop Earplugs—discovered himself asking after an evening out throughout faculty practically seventeen years in the past. He stood too near a speaker and ended up with tinnitus (the notion of ringing, buzzing, or different phantom sounds within the ears) for weeks. That second grew to become the catalyst for Loop, a listening to safety model that’s now offered over 11 million earplugs throughout 150 international locations.
All these years in the past, Loop was simply an thought born of ache. It was a wake-up name for Bodewes, not nearly listening to injury, however concerning the lack of listening to safety choices. He started testing all of the earplugs accessible on the time, however they had been “ugly foamies or awkward transparent ones that stuck out of your ears,” Bodewes instructed EDM.com. They had been uncomfortable, distorted the music, and worst of all, made wearers really feel like they didn’t belong within the room. “People dress up to go out,” he stated. “No one wants to ruin their look with something clunky sticking out of their head.”
The statistics are sobering. The World Health Group estimates that round 1.1 billion younger folks are prone to listening to loss from unsafe listening practices at concert events and festivals. Plus, a 2023 EDM.com ballot discovered that just about half of music competition attendees don’t put on ear safety.
Some really feel earplugs will damage the music. For others, the post-show ringing within the ears is a part of the expertise. A brief buzz, possibly even a badge of honor. However audiologists and researchers say that sensation—referred to within the scientific group as a “temporary threshold shift”—is definitely your ears begging for assist. This sensation generally impacts artists as properly. Martin Garrix and Alesso have each spoken publicly concerning the influence of tinnitus on their careers.
A part of the issue is that individuals don’t understand how rapidly the injury can set in. Publicity to excessive volumes, even briefly, can have long-term penalties. To make it worse, the ears don’t have ache receptors, so not like a minimize or burn, listening to injury doesn’t set off fast bodily ache. By the point the ringing or muffled listening to kicks in, the hurt could already be performed.
In response to the Nationwide Institutes of Health, listening to loss can start at simply 85 decibels (dB). The typical digital music live performance clocks in at 100–112 dB, with front-row ranges typically spiking to 120 dB or greater. That’s greater than sufficient to trigger everlasting injury in beneath quarter-hour. Publicity to these sound ranges overstimulates delicate hair cells within the internal ear, that are the microscopic constructions chargeable for translating vibrations into sound indicators. As soon as broken, they can not develop again. This leads to long-term listening to loss, tinnitus, and elevated sensitivity to noise over time.
These dangers propelled Bodewes to sketch a unique imaginative and prescient for earplugs. He believed listening to safety must be much less of a compromise and extra of an adjunct. “I love everything that’s loud, whether that’s festivals, concerts, fast cars or motorcycles,” Bodewes described his ardour for sound. He wrote his faculty thesis on reinventing earplugs, and whereas holding a day job at Microsoft, spent nights and weekends making an attempt to create a brand new sort of earplug with longtime buddy Dimitri O.
In 2016, they launched Loop’s prototype and pitched it to a Belgian startup accelerator. After getting accepted, Bodewes instantly give up his job and poured all his financial savings into Loop. Going all in like that was robust however obligatory. “I’m not very risk averse. If I drive a motorcycle, I drive all out, if I play poker, I go all in quite often,” Bodewes stated about ditching stability to pursue his ardour. “If you want to solve a problem that you face personally, you’re very motivated, it’s not about making money.”
The early Loops had been 3D printed and spray-painted by hand in Bodewes’ yard. They had been offered principally to family and friends. By word-of-mouth and a rising fame for high quality, Loop began gaining traction.
As momentum constructed, Loop doubled down on the scene that impressed it within the first place—nightlife. “We always went to festivals and Tomorrowland was just 10 kilometers from where we lived,” Bodewes shared about his private connection to bop music. He describes his tastes as “100% electronic music.” At residence, Bodewes enjoys listening to Lane 8’s seasonal mixtapes and different melodic home artists like Ben Böhmer. He additionally recounts Pete Tong, Swedish Mafia, and deadmau5 as a few of his favourite dwell performances. He even named their web site loopnightlife.com and signed emails off as “Nightlife Evangelist.”
Bodewes’ enthusiasm and understanding of the digital music group impressed him to place Loop in a different way than different earplugs. The product was marketed as liberation as a substitute of safety, need as a substitute of guilt. “Other brands said, ‘It’s too loud, protect yourself,’” he identified. “But our message was, ‘go front row.’”
Loop’s mindset resonated with ravers and club-goers who had grown bored with selecting between their listening to and the music. “If you wear earplugs, you can go out longer and be closer to the stage,” Bodewes emphasised about Loop’s mantra. “It’s more comfortable and you go home without a beep in your ears.”
Whereas most earplugs sacrifice sound high quality for cover, Loop got down to do each with out compromise. Conventional foam plugs typically distort the listening expertise, muffling music and chopping off sure frequencies fully. The consequence feels such as you’re listening to the present by means of a wall.
Loop’s strategy was completely different. They engineered and patented a round acoustic channel—roughly the size and curve of the human ear canal—to cut back quantity with out degrading readability. Paired with a precision mesh filter, this setup helps protect the complete frequency vary of sound by filtering sound waves fairly than blocking them, so you continue to really feel the bass and listen to the highs, simply at a safer, extra sustainable stage.
Analysis backs up what Loop provides. A randomized managed trial revealed in JAMA Otolaryngology discovered that concertgoers sporting earplugs skilled considerably much less listening to loss and tinnitus than those that didn’t.
Ear safety is turning into a part of rave tradition’s uniform. And with manufacturers like Loop main the way in which, the message is evident: you don’t have to decide on between listening to your favourite drop now and having the ability to hear it once more 5 years later.
However nice sound isn’t sufficient. If earplugs aren’t comfy, nobody would preserve them in lengthy sufficient to forestall listening to injury. Most earplugs are a one-size-fits-none scenario. They both slip out mid-set or dig into your ear canal after an hour.
Loop prototyped dozens of designs to repair that. They examined completely different insertion angles, canal lengths, and tip supplies utilizing digital dummy heads and 3D-printed mockups. The ultimate consequence was a system of soft-touch, food-grade silicone ear suggestions that are available in a number of sizes, paired with an ergonomic loop-shaped shell that evenly distributes stress. This design doesn’t simply make the earplugs extra comfy, it retains them steady throughout motion, essential for if you’re dancing at a music competition.
The improved match additionally helps cut back the occlusion impact—the irritating phenomenon the place one’s voice or footsteps sound oddly amplified if you block your ears. By minimizing this, Loop earplugs really feel extra pure and breathable. You overlook you are sporting them.
Fixing consolation and sound was vital, however making folks need to put on earplugs meant getting the design proper as properly. Most earplugs in the marketplace seemed disposable. They had been foam sticks or translucent cones you hoped nobody seen. You wore them despite how they seemed.
Loop wished to flip that. The purpose wasn’t simply to make earplugs much less ugly; Bodewes wished them to really feel like jewellery. “Sometimes I compare earplugs to sunglasses,” he stated. “They started as functional tools for pilots, now they’re a fashion staple.” That very same logic drove Loop’s strategy. Their signature round design is fashion-forward. It would not scream listening to safety. As an alternative, it’s smooth and expressive.
Colorways performed a giant function in Loop’s kind issue as properly. Bodewes noticed earplugs as an extension of identification. From refined neutrals to reflective metallics, Loop provides choices that work together with your outfit, not in opposition to it. Restricted-edition collaborations, seasonal drops, and soft-touch finishes helped place the model not simply as a instrument however as a life-style accent and type of self-expression.
In 2019, the New York Instances named Loop the very best earplug for concert events. “That gave us a really good boost,” Bodewes famous. “We expanded into retail, partnering with chains like CVS in the USA and Saturn in Europe, and became profitable by the end of 2019.” However progress got here with new challenges. “In the beginning, we thought we could scale 3D printing all the way, but if you do really high volumes, that’s difficult.” Bodewes shared. “When we moved to injection molding, the first run came back with warped plastic and we had to fly to China and fix the products by hand.”
Loop overcame these early hurdles and located its footing, scaling rapidly and reaching a broader viewers quicker than they ever anticipated. “Fifty to sixty percent of our customers never bought earplugs before,” Bodewes revealed. “We’re creating that category as we go.”
One milestone nonetheless loomed massive, bringing the model to Tomorrowland. “It was in our minds from the very start,” Bodewes affirmed. “We went to Tomorrowland, even when it was small, and had a personal motivation to see our product at that festival.”
It took nearly 5 years of progress, iteration, and relentless pitching to make it occur. “We had to be grown up enough to work with them,” Bodewes defined, referring to the extent of product polish, model maturity, and advertising muscle required to accomplice with arguably probably the most prolific digital music competition on the earth.
Loop’s first official partnership with Tomorrowland launched in 2022. Nevertheless it wasn’t only a sponsorship. Loop created customized earplugs particularly for the competition, even adjusting the carry case, packaging, and equipment to match the Tomorrowland aesthetic. The limited-edition earplugs featured a gold-accented ring and the phrases “Live, Love, Unite”—a nod to the competition’s iconic slogan. The case was designed to resemble a compass, symbolizing sound as a information.
Now, with the 2025 version of Tomorrowland across the nook, Loop is getting into its fourth 12 months partnering with the competition.
This 12 months, Loop has hit one other milestone. They grew to become Coachella’s first official earplug accomplice. To mark the event, the Loop launched customized earplugs that includes a desert-sunset gradient, offered on-site on the competition grounds and on-line.
Loop has additionally ventured exterior the music world, partnering with McLaren Racing earlier this 12 months. These earplugs featured the group’s signature papaya orange and carbon black whereas spotlighting Loop’s most superior mannequin but, the Change 2. In contrast to conventional earplugs, which supply a single stage of noise discount, the Change 2 lets customers toggle between three distinct modes—”Quiet,” “Experience,” and “Engage”—with a discreet rotating dial constructed into the ring. It’s a design that mirrors the McLaren ethos: precision, management, and adaptableness.
What began as a distinct segment product has now change into a part of the tradition. “In the beginning, it was a game for us to find the first person wearing Loops out in the open,” Bodewes beamed. “Now, you go to the front row of a festival and everyone’s wearing them. It’s really cool to see that shift.”
That form of international visibility might sound inevitable now, however a couple of years in the past, Loop practically misplaced all the things. When the pandemic hit in early 2020, nightlife shut down in a single day, and so did Loop’s core buyer base. “Our revenue dropped almost 90 percent in just two weeks,” Bodewes recalled. “No more festivals, no more going out, and retail stopped ordering entirely.”
It was a make-or-break second. As an alternative of ready it out, Loop tailored. They pivoted to a completely direct-to-consumer mannequin. Folks caught at residence—mother and father, college students, distant employees—began shopping for Loop earplugs not for events, however for peace and quiet. Others turned to Loop for assist with overstimulation, sensory processing, or higher sleep.
That wave of sudden demand led to the discharge of Loop Quiet, earplugs constructed for calm. Designed with soft-touch supplies and optimized for lengthy put on, it helped reposition the model past nightlife. The messaging developed as properly. They shifted their tagline from “Protect your ears in style” to a extra inclusive ethos, “Your life, your volume.”
This wasn’t only a intelligent rebrand. It was a survival technique that unlocked new audiences and use instances, ones that now make up a major share of Loop’s progress at present. “We now ask ourselves how we can empower people to live fully whether they want to go loud at a festival, focus during the day in a busy office, or sleep on a plane,” Bodewes acknowledged.
Orders began pouring in from folks craving focus, calm, or just much less noise—mother and father in loud houses, overwhelmed college students, distant employees in shared areas, and lightweight sleepers in want of relaxation. A very significant wave of customers got here from the neurodivergent group—folks with autism, ADHD, sensory sensitivity, or anxiousness. For many who expertise auditory overload, even routine environments can really feel like an assault. Loop supplied a approach to soften the perimeters of the world and switch the quantity down with out shutting all the things out.
“When we started Loop, we didn’t think of being able to help like this,” Bodewes marveled. “Now, when we hear stories about how it helps people walk around, be at family events, be in the classroom, and stay more calm, it touches our team quite a lot.”
What started as a rave accent has developed right into a instrument for on a regular basis resilience. Loop isn’t simply serving to folks hear higher—it’s serving to them really feel safer, calmer, and extra relaxed in their very own lives.
Wanting forward, the corporate is increasing into new classes and audiences. “We’re working on four or five new products, some in the hearing space, some beyond,” Bodewes revealed. “We’re going to use electronics and advanced tech and there’s going to be a lot of cool new collaborations coming in sports and fashion too.” Loop is not a scrappy startup. It has 300 workers and workplaces in Antwerp, Belgium, in addition to Amsterdam, New York Metropolis, and Shanghai.
“We’re still building for that 10% though,” Bodewes emphasised, referencing the early days when 90% of individuals thought nobody would purchase fashion-forward earplugs. “Sometimes our ideas may split opinion but we have to trust our gut.”
For Bodewes, the purpose remains to be the identical because it was nearly twenty years in the past: give folks management over how they expertise the world, whether or not meaning turning it down or tuning again in.
