Are you a musician or strictly a sound guy? The hearing protection technology required if you have to play and/or sing is very different from that needed if you have to mix, and this is different from what you need to just be around loud music.
I am a musician and do sound as well, and have been using ACS Pro 17 and Pro 10 hearing protectors for about 5 years. I play congas and other percussion in a Cuban rumba group, just percussion and vocals. I also have substantial high frequency noise-induced hearing loss. Playing unamplified congas and sitting close to other percussion, performing in a small club, the Leq (average sound pressure level) runs 105-115 dBA at my ears, depending on how hard we are playing. Projecting the sound unamplified is actually much louder at the musician's ear than playing with a mic and PA. Also, this is mostly impulse sound and the loudness is likely underestimated by my OSHA Class 2 sound level meter.
With that background, the ACS Pro 17 hearing protectors work ok for playing, when we are really loud, but make it much more difficult to hear the timing cues of the other players, or the vocals. Playing in time and singing in key are much more difficult than without hearing protection. Part of this is due to my hearing loss, and part is due to the much higher attenuation of the earplugs above 8 kHz, where a lot of the impulse sound of the timing cues is found. The Pro 10 are a bit better, but still not easy to use while playing or singing. The cost of these earplugs is $185 including the custom ear molds (if you can get them done in NYC or LA).
To try to solve that problem, I got the ACS IEMs with an ambient mic in each one, and the Live! Ambient Processor. This setup can be used without any monitor mix, with only the ambient sound from each ear mic, and functions as a noise-attenuating hearing aid. The ambient mics work reasonably well, allowing some localization of sound and good loudness control both above and below ambient sound level. It works better than the passive ACS Pro earplugs but it is still harder to hear the other instruments' timing cues and the vocals than using nothing at all. Even so, I usually use this IEM setup because I can leave a gig without my ears ringing, and be able to hear reasonably well the next day. With no protection, I have a noticeable increase in my hearing loss and tinnitus for the next few days. The IEM setup costs $525 to $1200 for the IEM with mics plus $700 for the processor. To put that in perspective, hearing aids cost $2000-$6000 plus batteries and replacement costs over the years, and are usually not covered by medical insurance. Not needing hearing aids is worth a whole lot more than that.