Sometimes when I ride up behind people on the paths, they are wearing ear buds and they cannot hear you, even when you speak to them very loudly and directly.

Some ear buds block out outside noise.
I want some of those.

I bought some noise cancelling earbuds from Target but they don't work. Can anyone tell me what to look for? I saw one pair that worked but they didn't have any kind of markings on them. They had flat cables, fwiw.
TIA.

Are you looking for sound blocking earbuds for riding, or for sitting inside? My favorite are great indoors but I don't think they would stay in your ear while riding, they're too heavy.

Normally the earbuds that I go for are $100 and up, but believe it or not, this earbud for < $15 is actually very nice.

https://amazon.com/gp/product/B00YOVI6UW

This works great in my open plan office for not having to listen to conversations around me.

Please check the instructions on how to wear. The wires go forward and up over and behind the ear. In that position they are very comfortable and will stay in place. If you don't wear them like that, they will fall out constantly.

Pros use tape so the ones that dont fill the ear canal wont fall Out, they can still hear each other

I WOULD NOT USE ANY THAT BLOCK ALL SOUND IN PUBLIC WHERE YOUR EARS ARE PART OF YOUR SAFETY AWARENESS

I will not use them for riding. I want to use them at work to block out other people's conversations so that I can concentrate.

You want what are called "in-ear monitors". Shure and Etymotic Research both make very good ones. Expect to pay $50-100 for a decent pair, although they can easily reach $300+ for true studio models.

Make sure that whatever pair you get comes with a set of different sized earplugs, so that you can achieve a proper fit.

Due to the tight seal to block noise, they don't work well for exercise, you wind up getting a lake inside your ear.

Noise canceling? look at Bose. (I think)They create an out of Phase replication and that cancels the other sound waves.

https://www.bose.com/en_us/products/...eadphones.html

Check out the link I provided. It's a pair of balanced armature in ear monitors. For < $15 on Amazon. Yeah I thought bull**** too but they really sound quite good.

They're not as good as my Sony monitors, and my Sennheisers sure sound better, but these things are awesome for the money and you can leave them at work without sweating it.

I had a pair of Bose QC15s. They're pretty good but a warning, some people can't stand wearing them. I'm one of those people. After 15 minutes I had to take them off, they drive me crazy.

Besides, a well fit pair of in ear monitors really does about as well for a fraction of the money.

Pros in the Music Business have custom ear canal Molds for their On stage in ear Monitors, FWIW.

Would these block out LOUD conversations?

Well, nothing's perfect. Even active noise cancelling headphones let very loud conversations through.

When I have them in, I don't hear anything, and people have to tap on my shoulder to get my attention.

I think they block as well as any passive (non noise cancelling) hearbud is going to. And it's cheap to try.

I ordered some of those $15 ear buds. I'll let you know how they work out.

I use these. Can't complain for the money but the wiring is pretty fragile so you have to be careful with them. I've killed off a few pairs being heavy handed before realizing what was happening (now I'm much more careful putting them on/off.) This type of earphone tends to pick up wind noise so they're going to work best with something like Cat Ears, Wind-Blox or Slipstreamz Spoilers.

I just ordered a pair of these a couple of weeks ago.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...?ie=UTF8&psc=1

and use them with these tips:
https://www.amazon.com/Earphones-Plu...placement+tips

They stick out of your ear a bit farther but stay in better while riding and block out more noise than the standard tips.

With my iphone7, they cut out far less than the $100+ Jaybird branded buds I tried. They also sound better. Ultimately, I prefer Etymotic earbuds, but I've killed three pairs due to sweat getting into the mic/volume buttons. After the Jaybirds performed horribly, I started looking for cheaper options and landed on these.

I got my $15 ear buds. They sound good, and they kind of block outside noises, but I wouldn't trust them to protect me if I was, say, running a lawn mower.

At work I don't want to wear ear plugs - for concerns that that would appear anti-social. I'm thinking I might make fake ear buds - I could plug some tethered ear plugs into my phone.
Sound like a plan?

This sounds like a good idea.

Of course, not, that's not what they're for.

Wearing ear plugs is antisocial but wearing earbuds is not?

Around here everyone wears one or the other. It's called "trying to get some damned work done" and isn't considered antisocial.

I sometimes use these:

https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/...?ie=UTF8&psc=1

They're designed to mute everything down by 12db, but not significantly affect sound quality. They're especially good at concerts if you don't want to have tinnitis by 40.

you wont get total noise canceling with any $300.00 in ears. To get it where you can hear almost no outside noise, you will need to have them custom fit to your ear canal. Mine were $900.00 and that was 300 off. But they do the job. 6 drivers per ear. And it cancels out about 99% outside noise. 1964 ears is the name of the company that did mine. There are a couple of companies out there but if there not custom fit, they are little more than overly priced earbuds.

best noise cancelling one . Check this list https://www.cnet.com/topics/headphon...ise-canceling/