Ever since the iPod came out, this has been a growing problem. And since Apple dominated the MP3 player market, the problem has only become worse. I hate having my own music drowned out by someone on the other side of the train. Don't they realise how dangerous it is?

I know I have to listen to my music a bit louder than I usually would when I'm on a bus. Mainly to drown out the sound of irritating passengers, other people's music, or the actual bus itself.

When I'm at home, or walking around the music is always significantly quieter. I know those large DJ-style headphones give the best sound quality and cancel out sound from outside sources a lot more effectively, but they cause issues because you can't always hear a car coming (might be running a red light as you're crossing the road, or a truck backing out of a driveway).

Also the fact that they're (the good ones anyway) ridiculously expensive compared to your average ear bud headphones doesn't help either.

Maybe if Apple supplied a decent quality headphone of that size to cancel out noises as well, we might not have the music so loud.

Using noise-cancelling headphones and having your music up ridiculously high makes the dangers all the same in terms of not hearing hazards like cars etc.

It would be nice if Apple supplied better earphones, but at the same time there are a lot of people using standard quality earphones who have no need to advertise their music preference to the crowd around them.

Honestly, I think some people do it simply because they really enjoy their music (i've been known to turn up my surround sound when the hosue is empty cause the bass makes the walls reverberate, giving extra effects to the music), and others do it because they want other people to hear what they are listening to. A little info for the latter people: not all of us like what you like!