Earphones and hearing loss

[Shinova]

I read that Yahoo article about youths in the UK or some country suffering perma-hearing loss from playing their music loudly on their earphones from their mp3 players. The question that I want to ask that the article doesn't answer is how loud exactly were these youths turning their music to. The article seems to imply that listening music on earphones or headphones causes hearing damage period, but that doesn't seem right.

[Erik von Nein]

Depends on the decibels and the duration, really. You could listen to something that was over 90 for a few seconds and suffer hearing damage, for a rather extreme instance. It also depends on how often they do it. If it's moderate hearing damage, but done over a long period of time fairly often then it's going to amount to more than the 90 for a few seconds.

[Twoyboy]

http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/ ... pic=latest

This article has a little more detail, but not much.

If they listen for only five hours a week at more than 89 decibels, they would already exceed EU limits for noise allowed in the workplace, the report says.

and

This view is supported by a study last year by the British Royal National Institute for Deaf People fthat ound more than half of young people who use MP3 players listen for longer than five hours a week and at levels near 85 decibels.

[GrandMasterTerwynn]

I read that Yahoo article about youths in the UK or some country suffering perma-hearing loss from playing their music loudly on their earphones from their mp3 players. The question that I want to ask that the article doesn't answer is how loud exactly were these youths turning their music to. The article seems to imply that listening music on earphones or headphones causes hearing damage period, but that doesn't seem right.

It is absolutely right. Especially for the sort of earphones which plug into your ear canal. It's like taking a sonic laser beam and shooting it at your delicate inner ear bits. All that sound power is focused very efficiently by your ears and the headphones, so it takes much less volume than you'd think to cause hearing loss (50% volume from a portable music player, for example, puts you at 94 dB!)

[cosmicalstorm]

Yeah I got tinnitus thanks to my Ipod a couple of years ago
I never had what most people would consider a loud volume on the thing either.
These days I use headphones with the volume turned up pretty good, but with earplugs underneath to take away the destructive effects.

[Boyish-Tigerlilly]

Why not just turn the volume down instead of putting it way up and using plugs? I don't understand.

[Shinova]

It is absolutely right. Especially for the sort of earphones which plug into your ear canal. It's like taking a sonic laser beam and shooting it at your delicate inner ear bits. All that sound power is focused very efficiently by your ears and the headphones, so it takes much less volume than you'd think to cause hearing loss (50% volume from a portable music player, for example, puts you at 94 dB!)

So an Ipod at 50% would be that strength? Thanks, that provides some much needed reference point, now I know where better to set my ipod to.

[chr335]

A rule I heard if you can't hear someone next to you talking the sound in probably too high.

[Lord Revan]

what my brother told me is that if someone else can hear (clearly) what you're listening, when you're using earphones (especially ones you put into your ear) the volume is too high (this was ages ago though)

[Stark]

That's irrelevant for in-ear phones, with minimal noise leakage. They can be very quiet externally while being very loud (and potentially dangerous) for the listener.

[Lord Revan]

That's irrelevant for in-ear phones, with minimal noise leakage. They can be very quiet externally while being very loud (and potentially dangerous) for the listener.

that's why I said it was ages ago, when noise dampening wasn't so good, I might not be ancient but I was still born in '82

[Stark]

People still use those appalling bud ones that send 40% of the sound at everyone else, which is lame.

[Broomstick]

I listen to headphone stuff so low, other people often say they can't hear it at all. But I can. I also have decent hearing for my age, wonder if the two are connected?

Headphones can easily cause hearing damage. They don't have to, but they can.

[Adrian Laguna]

I haven't used headphones in a long time (I got an iPod last Christmass, it's still in its package), but I generally tend to prefer low volume stuff. I know that sometimes for car radios the volume that other people find comfortable I find painful.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

The best thing to do is use full-size, padded, noise-canceling headphones (the giant ones that completely engulf your ears), so that you can deliver a high quality music with less white noise to yourself, rather than using earbuds which are extremely harmful. The lack of white noise with noise-canceling headphones more than makes up for the reduced volume, as does the padding around the ear. Granted, that's with the computer at home; I don't own any portable music players at all, despite the fact that when at home I'm continuously listening to music.

[Phantasee]

I use a pair of those in-ear ones, and I think they are the best I've ever used. They block out the outside sound so well that I don't have to deal with an inability to hear my own music, which is probably the main cause of people turning it up to 11 in the first place.

With my old headphones, they were turned up to maybe an 1/8th or 1/4th on my iPod at night when I was laying in bed with nothing making noise around me. With the in-ear ones, I have my iPod turned all the way down to 0 (with the 6G iPod you can turn it to 0 and still get sound, it doesn't mute it. The 5th gen ones need you to turn it up one notch) and I can hear very well, I get all the low and high sounds just fine.

Sometimes even 0 is a little too loud, but that's just a subjective thing, I think (like sometimes the same light you see everyday is all of a sudden too bright for comfort).

[JointStrikeFighter]

The best thing to do is use full-size, padded, noise-canceling headphones (the giant ones that completely engulf your ears), so that you can deliver a high quality music with less white noise to yourself, rather than using earbuds which are extremely harmful. The lack of white noise with noise-canceling headphones more than makes up for the reduced volume, as does the padding around the ear. Granted, that's with the computer at home; I don't own any portable music players at all, despite the fact that when at home I'm continuously listening to music.

The weight and bulk of headphones like that rules them out for most portable applications.

[Stark]

I use a pair of those in-ear ones, and I think they are the best I've ever used. They block out the outside sound so well that I don't have to deal with an inability to hear my own music, which is probably the main cause of people turning it up to 11 in the first place.

With my old headphones, they were turned up to maybe an 1/8th or 1/4th on my iPod at night when I was laying in bed with nothing making noise around me. With the in-ear ones, I have my iPod turned all the way down to 0 (with the 6G iPod you can turn it to 0 and still get sound, it doesn't mute it. The 5th gen ones need you to turn it up one notch) and I can hear very well, I get all the low and high sounds just fine.

Sometimes even 0 is a little too loud, but that's just a subjective thing, I think (like sometimes the same light you see everyday is all of a sudden too bright for comfort).

Using in-ear phones, I never had to turn my iPod up past 25-30%, even when next to roads etc (such close, low freq shit interferes regardless of volume, and since it's conducted through your bones noise-cancellation is also useless). My iPhone (which is nowhere near as loud at maximum) never goes above 50%. Sadly, given the way these phones work, they probably ARE more dangerous to use than simply using buds and turning the volume up so loud you're annoying people a dozen meters away.

[Beowulf]

Well, with in-ear phones, you have a much better signal to noise ratio, so most people aren't tempted to turn them up as loud in the first place. With the little earbuds, you have to turn them up much higher simply to be able to hear your music, so you tend have the sound pressure at damaging levels.

Of course, with in ear headphones, you can't hear your surroundings, so you're much more liable to get run over by a car.