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Is the iPod Generation Going Deaf?
prozac79 writes "Ars Technica and Wired News are both running interesting articles on how personal music players are a major contributor [ArsTechnica] to early hearing loss [Wired]. According the ArsTechnica article, an increasing number of people are now living in "noisy" environments that is only made worse by blocking it out with even louder music. The article also suggests that listening to music for one hour a day is considered safe. So now you have a choice... go deaf early or go insane listening to your coworkers chatter."
I have a pair of Bose Quietcomfort headphones, and I wonder if the noise cancelling is actually damaging my hearing. What do you think?
Win win situation. Listen to music until you're deaf, and then never be able to here your chatty coworkers again!
Let the commencement BEGINULATE!
Is the Walkman Generation Going Deaf?
US News and World Report and Newsweek are both running interesting articles on how personal tape players are a major contributor [US News] to early hearing loss [Newsweek]. According the US News article, an increasing number of people are now living in "noisy" environments that is only made worse by blocking it out with even louder music. The article also suggests that listening to music for one hour a day is considered safe. So now you have a choice... go deaf early or go insane listening to your coworkers chatter."
Nothing new hear, we've been getting this since at least 1980. There are likely stories about how the photograph, motion picture "talkie", transister radio and lord knows whatelse cause problems.
Uhm... yes? If I can hear the music clearly from your earbuds across the room, your "coolness factor" (apparently consisting of making sure everyone can hear your really loud rap music) will not prevent hearing damage. I say let 'em. Common sense will prevail for the rest of us.
this is my sig
I find, when walking down the street - that I've got my iPod's volume up to the highest level. It's not because I really like the song, and want to hear it really loudly, but rather, I can't hear it if I turn it down at all. Simply because of the passing traffic is so noisy.
Had I kept the iPod down to a lower level, say at 0.75 or 0.5 - then I simply wouldn't be able to hear it - so, perhaps the problem is not the music players, but rather, an increase in noise from other locations? For example, traffic?
Is the world itself getting noisier?
Was this not a problem when the walkman was introduced or is our environment a lot noisier now? I'm just curious as it seems this would affect every generation since the walkman was introduced not just the "ipod generation". Then again, I admit I didn't rtfa.
go deaf early or go insane listening to your coworkers chatter.
Or wear ear plugs.
It'll be difficult for some people to stop wearing headsets. You get used to the "company", and become a bit nervous when there's silence.
"I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
Deafness is a useful adaption to the modern working environment. A touch of deafness blocks out the computer fans, the traffic noise, the endless airplanes flying overhead, the neighbour's kids, and the wife. The only problem is that it takes more and more volume to produce that "oh, yeah!"effect when listening to music. But that's someone else's problem.
Personally, I went partly deaf at the age of 16 from spending too much time on a firing range. But most of my peers went similarly deaf not from the iPod, but from the Sony Walkman.
This story is about 25 years too late. I guess each generation reinvents the "we went deaf because..." story.
My blog
I believe EU iPods have a volume limit anyway, but this is easily removed.
what?
er ... a marked movement for us as humans ... how'd their ears weather?
... at this time.
Just asking.
Your damange from your iPod isn't changing the planet
What the fuck, exactly, is the "iPod Generation"? Theres a whole generation that defines itself by its MP3 player now? Where are they and are their women cute, cos they sure ain't too smart.
What he can't kill, he has sex on. Trent.
A sign of a healthy office is a fairly high level of chatter. It means that people get along well with each other and are comfortable talking amongst themselves. Some large, draconian corporations try to encourage this through "company picnics" and other hokey things that force people together who would otherwise not normally associate. Companies where people like each other generally do not need such encouragement.
If you are so anti-social that you feel that your coworkers' chatting is driving you insane (I'm sure you're exaggerating), I wouldn't be surprised to find that others also find you socially repulsive. Humans are a social animal and anti-social behavior is a sign of sickness. If you notice people chatting near you, it is a sign of a healthy personality that you join them for a few laughs. Turning up your iPod is not healthy.
And who said you need to have music to tune out coworkers anyway? If you are really bothered by their presence, earplugs work very well. And they don't hurt your hearing.
Jesus saved me from my past. He can save you as well.
Should companies like Apple take the initiative and add functionality to music players that assess the safety of output sound levels? Given the wide-variety of headphone options and quality, is it even possible?
Sony's portable audio players have had a system to limit the volume for quite a long time now (many years at least), the Automatic Volume Limiter System (AVLS). A quick search with google reveals that it was/is quite wide-spread amongst their devices. Even their PDAs feature it.
I love my music device, especially when I can glide past the ever annoying people trying to sell you something on the streets.
Almost every street block now in Sydney, we have these hawkers that try to come up to with "with a question" or some other crap, now I just simply ignore them - and it doesnt seem as rude if you have something stuck in your ear!
They block outside noise by 23db, so you don't have to turn the music up to drown out the noise. I sometimes leave them in even without listening to music. They are nearly as good as a pair of headphone style hearing protectors.
http://www.etymotic.com/
Could you turn it up?
I can't hear you.
I picked up a high quality, handheld sound level meter at a local electronics store for less than $100. No more worrying or second guessing myself when enjoying music in loud environments. I figure the potential hearing damage I'll be preventing is well worth the small investment.
I followed the link to the Wired News article, and the ad on the side of the page was for the iPod nano.
However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results. -- Winston Churchill
Didn't I read this same story about Walkman's 20 years ago? And didn't they decide the effects were negligable? Oh yeah I did. Abstract from a study in 1987: Krahenbuhl D, Arnold W, Fried R, Chuden H. Investigations on 50 high school students showed that this group had been using the "Walkman" only 1.5 h. per day during the last 14 months. A comparison of the audiometric results obtained with these 50 "Walkman" users, with those of 20 age-related non-"Walkman" users, showed no statistically significant differences. The investigation further revealed that to avoid hearing loss, an upper threshold level of 93 dB (A) should not be exceeded for a daily "Walkman" user time of two hours. PMID: 3613781 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]
Dunno, but I typed this on my Braille keyboard.
The latest Slashdot meme.
Ofcourse it's not just the iPod, but people voluntarily exposing their very sensitive ears to very music/sound/noise for a longer period. It was really cool to play very loud music when the first walkman came out. I also wonder what the long term effects will be of using the Click Wheel and exposure to 1.5 inch iPod nano screens. Also afraid that the hearing loss will cause people to turn up their volume, causing even more noise.
-- Neminem laede, immo omnes, quantum potes, iuva.
The technology has been around quite a while. so long in fact that I have a pair from Circuit City that cost around $14 that blocks the low frequency stuff quite well. (so amazingly well on airplanes that I use them even when not listening to anything just to take a nap.)
It's just speakers, an inverting op-amp, and microphones. None of those components are very expensive or complicated, so what's with the bose pricing.
for that matter, what's with bose pricing on any of its equipment. It's still just cheap speakers in a plastic case no matter how you dress it up.
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
Then again, this iPod goes to 11.
The latest Slashdot meme.
..the present day singers believe in lip-syncing, this way they are not the "cause" for noise pollution into your ears, it is the original singer. on a serious note, ear-buds are also known to cause ear infection, especially when shared. Maybe directional speakers (heard somewhere) can help, which can beam sound in a particular direction (assuming you are in office/room).
Even if they are active, they will just cancel out the external sounds. I am not sure how to work it out, but I would expect the energy to transfer to heat or somethin'. I would think that noise cancelling headphones would reduce hearing loss, as you don't need as much sound.
I have freaks! I did something right...
I don't have an ipod, but I do listen to music through headphones. I'm a bit hard of hearing and for the past year or so when I listen to music I play it at the absolute lowest volume that I can hear it. Maybe it's just in my mind but I've noticed an improvement in my hearing. Not to mention it's less of a distraction to my development (and/or slashdot postings).
Consequently, this behavior makes me realize that I need a quieter PC case. I've got a home made hack job case too many fans. I think it's time to upgrade to a professionally built case that would be quieter but I'm still having a hard time justifying dumping $150-$300 on a case.
After that I've still got fish tanks that make a significant amount of noise. Not much I can do about that other than keep the water levels full or get rid of them alltogether.
The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either. - Benjamin Franklin
Seriously: I was born 1969 and clearly are part of the walkman generation, using one (OK, cheap copycats) from the mid 80s till the early 90s. Then I exposed my ears to techno parties :-P
Whenever they check my hearing at the doctor or hospital they are surprised how good I hear considered my age.
So let me say:
Bah.
The ear-plug style headphones (Sony's and Apple's off the top of my head) are very good. Even if noise cancelling isn't built into them - they help substantially in blocking outside noises. That allows the listener to to listen to their music at whatever volume they want. They are really nice when in noisy environments (mowing the lawn and trimming, etc)...
iPods don't make people deaf; really really loud sounds make people deaf.
"So now you have a choice... go deaf early or go insane listening to your coworkers chatter."
Oh noes, I have to choose? Excuse me, but going deaf via good music, as opposed to listening to my wonderful Belarusian computer geek co-workers bicker in Russian? Hah! I think I'll choose music! At least it's in Englisch.
Somebody did.
I have freaks! I did something right...
It's not just mp3 players, it's car stereos (especially the 1000+ watt "boom cars") and loud exhausts. Some of the cars on the streets in my town can produce sound pressures that are actually painful -- from a distance of ten feet, in another car, with the windows up!!
Even base stereo systems these days are 60+ watts. That's enough to cause substantial hearing loss in a matter of weeks if listened to repeatedly, for an hour or more per day.
I can't even imagine how profound the boomcar boyz hearing loss must be. Not that I care... karma and all that.
Ever attended a rock concert? It's a near certainty that you did permanent damage toyour high frequency hearing.
Bring lawn tools into the equation (leaf blowers, lawn mowers, chainsaws, etc.) and that == more hearing loss.
However, it's not just the under-thirty crowd. Many of our fathers served time in the military, when hearing protection meant sticking your finger in your ear before the guy next to you threw a grenade or fired a 30.06. Hearing loss didn't mean shit when your biggest concern was not being shot on a beach landing. The difference is the genX'ers are *choosing* to damage their hearing.
A pair of high quality phones will reveal details without you neededing to turn up the volume. Isolation also means you aren't turning up the juice to make up for loud surroundings. Shure Etymotic Ultimate Ears Sensaphonics Westone
They said the same about walkmans back in the day. I'd like to see some real statistics about how many people went deaf from walkman listening, then some real statistics about how many went deaf from portable music player listening, then maybe I'll start paying attention. Until then, all this is just yet another guy's need for attention.
I am putting myself to the fullest possible use, which is all I can think that any conscious entity can ever hope to do.
Just get something that closes over the ear entirely. Sennheiser hd212's are pretty nice, and they don't need to be loud to ignore the outside environment (closed form muffles some of the outside sound.) You'll appreciate them.
Aye? what was that? SPEAK UP!
Most headphones and earbuds sold nowadays are "open air" which allows all the noise you don't want in.
This is ostensibly a saftey "feature" so you don't get run over by a bus that you didn't hear.
I find this to be stupid.
You aren't going to be hit by a bus on the subway/bus/if you aren't brain dead. The point of earbuds is to hear ONLY what you want.
If I wanted to hear the subway wheel orchestra, i'd take an earbud out.
I bought a pair of Sony MDR-EX51LP earbuds (the ones that have the silicone gaskets) and they block out pretty much everything without having to crank the volume up to uncomfortable levels. The sony's are a great cheap ($26 on amazon) alternative to the $100+ Shure earbuds and definately the $200+ etymolic research earbuds.
A good pair of "studio monitor" type headphones will also do the trick, but they are way bigger, more expensive, and you will look dorky on the subway/bus. Its also kind of odd when your headphones/earbuds are bigger than your mp3 player.
This is a similar comparison to the thoery that cell phones might give you some kind of brain cancer. It's still highly disputed and nobody can be too certain, there is logic to it but it's hard to prove either way when dealing with sublties of the human body (obviously this isn't always the case)
The real dangers lie with people inadvertantly exposing themselves to danger because they are effectively disabling an important sensory organ.
Take hiking/running in the desert with a music player on full blast, how the world are you going to hear a rattle snake or other really pissed-off animal or reptile. conversely how can anyone tell if a car has just ramped on the sidewalk behind you while jogging in manhattan?
You've essentially reduced yourself to someone who is deaf. Although...when compared to listening to my coworkers....gimme the friggin thing on full blast.
I only listen to loud music on my MP3 player while taking exercise. I figure that sacrificing my hearing for my heart is a good trade-off.
What worries me is that I often listen to spoken-word material on the bus, and to hear it I have to crank the volume up to levels that would be uncomfortable to listen to in a silent room. So are my fellow passengers and I all being deafened every morning by the ordinary background noise of travelling by bus?
Noise cancelling headphones if correctly implemented are rather more complex than just inserting an inverted signal. For the record, I am deaf (artillery and large engines, as if you care) and because of the strange hole in my hearing response I use a digital hearing aid. The configuration screen for programming this runs to a number of pages, and I can have it set to include or exclude things like refrigerator and fan noise. In fact, I have one program that does optimised noise cancelling to get the best speech response, and another that does no noise cancelling which is useful for music and for checking that things like HDDs are making the right noises.
Noise cancelling technology is already used in professional telephone headsets, and I am surprised that it is missing from iPods and the like. It would be easy enough to have a button which switched between cancelling and not cancelling external noise sources and which, like my hearing aid, has a setting which allows through a sudden loud noise when in N/C mode, as a safety factor in traffic. This would mean the ability to listen at lower volume levels in noisy conditions.
I have a local inductive loopset (one of the few good things to come out of Nokia in my view) which allows me to use the cell phone and to inject another sound source. With the hearing aid switched to inductive pickup only, and to block external sound, I can make a phone call in noisy conditions without difficulty.
Conclusion: the technology exists to fix these problems and enable people to listen at lower volumes, manufacturers just can't be bothered.
Panurge has posted for the last time. Thanks for the positive moderations.
Noise cancelling or isolating headphones.
Etymotic, Shure and Koss all make noise isolating headphones, which are generally cheaper and have higher quality sound than noise cancelling gimmicks like the Bose headsets.
Basically, you put in a set of these ear-canal plugs, you hear nothing but the music, and therefore can listen to your music at far lower levels in noisy environments than you would be able to with normal open or closed can style headphones.
The isolation from the Etymotic ER-4p/s for example, is 44 decibels, which is phenomenal. I own a pair of Er-4ps myself, and have used them a lot while travelling, and have to say that spending 300 euro on a set of headphones does not look like a waste of cash once you get up to 30,000 feet in a packed Airbus.
The isolation is so complete that it's shocking to hear the noise levels that everyone else is being exposed to once you pull the headphones out after a period of use.
Not to mention the fantastic sound quality.
Doesn't this remind you of the times you had to drive your dad somewhere and all he did was complain about how loud your music was?
Tea and kung-fu. Life is good. Rising Phoenix
I was born with hearing impediment so I have to wear a bone conduction hearing aid since I cannot hear well. Let's just say you would have to yell at me just to talk to me. I can hear music from loud concerts, loud movie theaters, loud churches, etc.
:) I could have a surgery to regain hearing but I think I will use my partial deafness as an advantage. Turn it off, and poof. Less audio to hear for me.
Anyways, I can always turn off my hearing aid if things get too loud.
Although wearing hearing aid can be annoying (e.g., changing batteries, fall off if I shake my head, hurt a lot if wearing too much, my head gets itchy, etc.).
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
I guess each generation reinvents the "we went deaf because..." story.
Yeah, before walkmen it was phonographs, and before that it was masturbation. Oh wait, that was blindness...
all we have to do is keep making louder and louder ipods and the problem is licked.
Cheap headphones and earbuds are the worst... What's needed are either in-ear designs like Shure offers (think earplugs with speakers in them), or big ol' studio headphones that cover your whole ear. These allow you to actually hear your music without turning it all the way up.
They demand perfect physical condition. Anyone who shows-up to the medical exam wearing headphones is immediately rejected, as listening to music suchly damages the hearing.
IS THE IPOD GENERATION GOING DEAF?
(by the way, the lameness filter can't take a joke.)
Temporary or permanent hearing loss can happen if: a) sound above 85 decibels - the louder, the more damage (got meter?). b) 85 decibels one hour or more in duration - the longer the more damage. c) and if the maximum output is forced into the 4000 Hz range - that does the maximum damage (like the Hollywood idiots boost sound during trailers - dumb and dummer). d) smoking cigarettes causes permament hearing loss. e) drinking alcohol cause temporary hearing loss. f) worse case scenario - guy who smokes and drinks and has been running sound boards at concerts for several years (dumb and dummer) - likely 50% hearing loss. g) notion is that if someone beside you can hear what's playing on your earphones/buds - you are having a hearing loss happening.
First an article on Ipod Phone, second an article on Ipod nano, third an article on Ipod phone being a clever strategy from Apple, now an article on Ipod making you deaf. What's next ? An article on the changes in human society caused by the Ipod or "Is the iPod Nani Generation Going Blind?" ? :)
Don't you know it is now both immoral and criminal to think beyond the next quarterly report?
Corporate accounts payable. Mina speaking. Just a moment please.
Nerd: Derogatory term typically directed at anybody with a lower Slashdot ID than you.
I would mod your comment funny, but I couldn't see it...
i'm the jedidiahmarkfoster your parents warned you about
it's the ability to turn these devices up so far that it damages the tiny hair like bones that allow us to hear. long term exposure to such high volumes WILL cause hearing damage. it's a fact. responsible companys should but a warning on the display of things like the ipod, stating the volume being selected will cause perminate hearing loss if listened to for x amount of time. it's not alarmist, it's practicle and i think people would listen to it.
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
Spending years debugging in data centers with lots of hard disks and fans has screwed up my hearing. A silly little iPod can't hold a candle to that. Don't let them tell you white noise is soothing - it's a hearing killer. Your ears need a chance to rest, and the constance of such noise doesn't give your ears a break.
In France, by law, the iPod generation is protected (the Walkman generation too).
Dont you remember that Apple forgot to put a volume limiter feature in their French iPods so that they had to stop selling them for a while ?
The only way to reduce this to limit the exposure time your ears endure. Hearing loss is a fact of life for anyone who wear's headphones for an extended period at high decibel levels, whether it's an iPod, Walkman or whatever. Check the link.
m l
http://www.hearnet.com/at_risk/risk_aboutloss.sht
From someone in the music industry, I cannot recommend noise cancelling phones or buds enough for someone who loves music and values their hearing. They are worth every penny and more. For the frequent concert goer or clubber, see an audiologist and get professional earplugs made. You won't sacrifice any sound quality and you'll preserve your hearing for future concerts and the rest of your life. It's one of the best investments you'll ever make.
Can someone suggest some good hearing aid companies to invest in? Should be quite a growth industry in the future.
All those boomers that didn't listen to their parents telling them to turn the music down... they're getting up to retirement age now.
Hear recorded Slashdot headlines on your phone! New service beta testing. Just call (248) 434-5508
People will look at you funny, but earplugs with headphones is the right answer. You can eliminate all the background noise, and play the music at a level that (after passing through the earplugs) is safe. Foam earplugs are available at drugstores - 20 - 30 pairs for about 6 dollars. To really do it right, get a nice pair of circumaural headphones like Sennheisers.
Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
I've been thinking about this for years, in a minor way off and on, and I'm still waiting for someone to invent a good feedback system for hearing level. If the music can be heard clearly at 80-85db, thenit is probably safe, right? However, all the studies I've seen measure db in the environment, not the energy approaching the ear. And if you're wearing earphones, how do you prevent hearing loss when you don't know what you are delivering to your ear?
Reactive noise-cancelling earphones would seem to be a good idea, especially if they can reduce the ambient noise to 50 or 60db and alow music to be heard at less than 85db. In fact, without music, I would be relieved sometimes to have noise-cancelling headphones to simply provide some near-silence. It would be a worthy project for competent technicians to come up with an inexpensive (less than $20) noise-cancelling headphone with signal contrast (outside noise less than 50db to inside noise less than 85db), easy equalization, and galvanic skin response sensors to indicate when the music was causing discomfort. (GSR might not be sufficient. Many recent studies showed that the type of music listened to can produce a variety of emotional and chemical responses ranging from peaceful, healthy, joyful to irritated, angry and unhealthy. Here's a a different question: If you knew loud rap and metallic rock were as bad for your system over the long run as cigarettes, would you quit listening to it?) An article written in layman's terms with good references can be found here: http://www.headwize.com/articles/hearing_art.htm.
Although the general consensus is that much hearing loss is irrepairable, I have heard rumors of people recovering some hearing ability by listening to specific music. (I think I first saw this in a book called "Superlearning 2000", and have heard subjective reports since then, but I haven't noticed any scientific papers.) Also, if high-frequency loss is a problem to you, I've heard good things about Echophone.
"The mind works quicker than you think!"
I read somewhere that the risk of getting tinnitus is smaller if you like the music. Ergo; if I for some sort of punishment (for like, rape or murder or something) have to listen to Good Charlotte all the time in my headphones, there is a much bigger risk that my hearing will get damaged than if I listen to Chopin.
As a proud owner of a Rio Karma, I wanted to get the most out of that player's superior sound quality (take that, iPod!), so I picked up a pair of Etymotic ER-6 earplugs. They provide about 35 dB of sound isolation, and the sound quality is utterly amazing. I've never had to pump the volume on my Karma past 20% while using them - and when I'm listening to music with them, I can't hear the phone ring three feet away (another huge benefit).
If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you can possibly imagine.
When did they release this KKK iPod? http://heelpress.com/article.php?id=22
by their inevitable disdain of mid-high quality but mainstream XYZ products.
Whether we are talking about speakers, wine, chocolate, cars, or golf clubs, there is nothing the aficionado hates more than anything in his or her realm of expertise that is pretty good and reasonably priced, as it undermines the value of their hard-earned knowledge.
Researchers at Boston Children's Hospital determined that listening to a portable music player with headphones at 60 percent of its potential volume for one hour a day is relatively safe.
60%! I would have thought it was bloody obvious that going over 60% of an iPod's volume was a danger area. I just tried mine at around that volume with the normal headphones and found it uncomfortably loud. Apart from anything else, I could tell which song was playing from the other side of the room, so anyone listening that loud on public transport deserves to go deaf.
I had always assumed that the only reason it went so loud was for powering external speakers etc.
I used to be annoyed by the loud noise on jets, and started wearing earplugs under my headphones.
It works really well. I am not an audiophile, but the sound quality actually seems better when I do that and turn up the volume. Maybe because it drowns out the surrounding noise better.
Qxe4
The plural of anecdote is not data.
My Karma: ran over your Dogma
StrawberryFrog
I have tinnitus, "ringing in the ears". I hear a constant sound, like a high-pitched squeal, all the time. It's worse when the ambient noise is low, but I barely notice it when there's noise around. In a very quiet place the sound I perceive can be very intense.
It comes from damage to degeneration of the nerves in the inner ear, or so I've been told.
Any constant, low-level sound tends to "mask" the ringing, so I can ignore it. Riding in a car with the windows down or in an airplane I don't notice the sound at all.
Noise cancelling headphones are an ironic sort of hell for me. The sound is a lot better, but in the breaks between songs I hear the tinnitus sound, like a freight train braking for a herd of violin-screeching crickets in my head.
Raise your children as if you were teaching them to raise your grandchildren, because you are.
A number of posters have commented that similar concerns were raised when Walkmans were introduced.
What I would be interested in knowing is if users have a tendency to listen to different portable audio sources at different volumes?
Louder music generally sounds better (to a point) so do the different characteristics of formats mean that listeners have a different baseline for volume? Do we play MP3s quieter than cassettes but louder than CDs?
There probably isn't enough of a difference to affect hearing loss, especially since most of the reason for dangerously high volumes is to drown out other noise, but it would be interesting to know.
A lot of even old music released on digital format has been remastered and run through a compressor. Listening to 'compressed' and uncompressed output, the compressed has more 'punch' to the ear.
I think music these days packs more punch to your ear.
[% slash_sig_val.text %]
Apple's first ever hearing aid in iPod design. Impress your elderly with iPod oldie edition.
ThinkOld - ThinkDeaf
*new accessory (not included)*
iGlasses: when you are going deaf, seeing is believing.
"Don't let fools fool you. They are the clever ones."
You do not want to exceed 95 dB, ever: EVER!
Take it from a deaf person whose hearing loss is averaged as 64 dB at 20Hz down to 95 @ 8 KHz. That is the surveyed threshold for a lifelong usage of a hearing aid without losing ones remaining hearing (thus rendering such hearing useless).
Hearings is not recoverable as the many tiny cilia hair nerves gets shortened at greater than 95 dB due to excessive POUNDING of the noise whipping these reed-like cilia back and forth (tearing or cutting off blood flows) as amplified by your middle ear bones and outer ear's ear drum.
Protect your ears, take it from a deaf person. It is career threatening in your mid-life. No need to get another cow during your mid-life crisis.
Cholear implant (CI) is a proven technology, but a bothersome hinderance to those late-deafened teens and adult as they did not grow up accustomed to these CI outfits. (Doable, but takes longer to get accustomed to these CI). CI is not a perfect replacement as you would get 32 channels (more later) spread across the sound spectrum but with GAPS in between. Computer/signal processors back-fills in these inter-channel gaps (not pleasant to a true classic music afficiandos).
Keep it down... It might save your life.
Don't get hit by a bus because you're IPODing. (interesting tidbits: 422 deaf people were killed by bus.)
I believe (though trying to find it on www.eu.int looks tricky !) that the EU has statutory maximum volume limits on audio devices where headphones can be attached (but I could be wrong on this). Mind you, I just bought a new MP3 player that is "comfortable" volume in the 15-25 range, but it can go to ear-bleeding "40", which I suspect is way above the EU limits. Strange, though, because I have another player that the same site sells and that's got a much lower maximum volume.
Admittedly, the isolation isn't as perfect as you describe for the Etymotic, but it's very noticeable and the fidelity being nothing short of amazing is a bonus too. I also like the closed can design more than in-ear plugs. (But that's just personal preference.)
And yep, you're absolutely right, it's nice to be able to listen to music at a more sane volume. And since the sound dampening works both ways, it also means my co-workers don't all get to listen to my music.
All in all, yep, I can only recommend that more people buy such headphones.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
So are the effects negligible, or do they just take some time to damage hearing? And is the 93 dB for 2 hours per day limit being followed by the iPod generation? In many cases, I doubt it.
My Karma: ran over your Dogma
StrawberryFrog
who needs to hear?? we've got IMs
http://www.shurestore.com/earphones/eseries_e5c.ht ml - Its all in the name of good health, right?
But seriously, I had mine for about 6 months now and I have to say the isolation is incredible. Baby screaming at the DVLA? no problem. Construction and train noises are also easily blocked out. The London Underground is a good test because its *very* loud - you cant hold a conversation screaming at the top of your lungs there. Here the isolation isnt enough, but all you hear is a faint windy sort of noise, which is fine.
are locked to a maximum "safe" volume. You can unlock them if you want but I've never felt the need myself. I suppose its American-libertarian to let you deafen yourself when you damn well want to be deafened or something.
Plays violent online games as: Nerfherder76
The headphones in Sony PSP are set to attenuate the signal at the headphone socket (ie make them quieter than than they should be) - apparantly so they couldn't be sued for hearing damage. If you want to listen to it at full scale output you have to buy your own.
Professor Karmadillo Songs of Science
Speak up, please!
May Peace Prevail On Earth
"Well I've been LISTENING TO MY IPOD SINCE GEN 1 and I can honestly say it HASN'T AFFECTED MY HEARING ONE JOT"
I have mild hearing damage in my left ear, unrelated to headphones. In my case, it has to do with years of practicing the violin without an earplug in my left ear (which is most vulnerable to damage in violinists).
:)
Nevertheless, I think the iPod generation is in luck, because they are also one of the first generations where genetic therapy is not purely science fiction. In the past couple of years, researchers discovered that the production of a protein (Rb1) was responsible for the behaviour shared by the inner ear hair cells of all mammals, or more to the point... the reason the hair cells do not divide and hearing does not regenerate. Recently scientists discovered the gene that was responsible for producing this protein in mice. Given 5 to 10 years, I am optimistic the naive iPod generation, senior citizens and even I will be eligible for gene therapy to reverse the effects of hearing loss.
It is important to protect your hearing, but damage is inevitable no matter how careful you are. Luckily, for musicians and the ignorant iPod generation, there is a glimmer of hope on the horizon
EOM
Both of these responses are exactly the things that XYZ-philes always say.
That doesn't make them untrue. This isn't painting-the-edges-of-a-CD audiophile nonsense, it's verifiable through simple means.
That 'niche at the upper end of the mainstream' is occupied by companies like Denon, Onkyo and Marantz, not Bose.
Have you ever tried comparing a Bose system with anything else? You know, actually do listening tests?
I've spent 6 years as an infantry soldier and I can say that I do have hearing damage from it. The little yellow foamies that are given to us like candy do nothing for percussive sounds. (Riffle and machine gun fire, explosives like grenades, firing mortars, etc...) It even comes with a warning on the packages. The only thing that really works would be a combination of the foamies and the full sized earmuffs. Now, you cannot wear earmuffs with a helmet. So we wear the foamies when we can.
The one advantage of my noise cancelling outside-ear headphones seems to be that I can hear the stewardess on a plane asking me what I'd like to drink better with them on than with them off. I always get the sense of replacing a large slice of aircraft noise by the music/film/etc. But maybe I should try these isolating ones.
Well, I really don't think it's strage. Look at what these kids are listening to there day's....
The crap is clipping as hell, and is also dramaticly compressed. This means audio energie is alway's about as high as it could be. No dymanics or anything. Obviously their ears can't take a rest. Besides sounding bad, it surely will not be good to your ears!
The problem there is that the "good" sound gets attenuated just as much as the "bad" sound. Instead of drowning out background noise by brute force, try using headphone-style noise reducers over on- or in-ear headphones. Better signal-to-noise ratio that way, so the sound oughta be cleaner.
Ok, I can understand seeing this on digg.....maybe on Reuters, but Slashdot? This is NOT news. There's no malfunction in the iPod that makes you go deaf. TURNING UP YOUR MUSIC SO LOUD I CAN HEAR IT SITTING BESIDE YOU ON THE BUS DOES! Grr! It's not iPods, it's not Walkmans....it's simple physics. Please god don't let politicians hear this because the next thing you know they will ban ear buds and headphones.
Gorkman
go deaf early or go insane listening to your coworkers chatter."
How about getting somewhat interested in human interaction instead of closing it off...
I read the same thing in the newspaper and it said listening to your muisc at sixty percent volume is safe for one hour not what the person wrote.
Ooo man the floppy drive is broken. No wait. The computer is just upside down.
And you know what is really sad? If, after some years (or decades, if you're lucky) you find that your hearing has suffered irreversible, non-repairable damage, that a big (if not the biggest) part of it was inflicted upon yourself, by yourself. Say what?
You turn the volume up to 'overpower' the background noise, right? In order for that to work, the volume will have to be at least equally strong as the background noise. It helps that you use earphones (which greatly reduce the background noise), but from the sound that enters your ears, most was produced by yourself. And so will any hearing damage that results from it.
To avoid long-term hearing damage, there's only 1 way: reduce that background level. And you don't have to be kind to the ones causing it - it's your health and well-being (and that of many others) they are damaging. Maybe not as bad, but no different from someone pouring a container with poison into a local park.
Is the world itself getting noisier?
I'd argue not (see subject). It's more that people are making lots of noise wherever they go. The noisiest places are often the same as those with large concentrations of people (big cities, pop concerts). And mostly there's little you can do about it. You want peace and quiet? Then put some distance between yourself and your fellow human beings.I think you mean cochlear implant. There is a good writeup here on cochlear implants and how they work.
I want to drag this out as long as possible. Bring me my protractor.
- As recently as thirty years ago, people worked in noisy factories, and often on machines without safety guards and/or interlocks. They didn't complain of premature deafness. If they lost a finger, their co-workers just had a whip-round.
- We used to eat fried breakfasts every morning; there were no artificial sweeteners, we put sugar on our corn flakes, and beef was more common than chicken. Nobody complained about obesity {Indeed, with some people, it used to be considered a good sign if they put weight on}.
- Benzodiazepines are less dangerous than the barbiturates that used to be prescribed, and heroin is less dangerous than morphine which in turn is less dangerous than crude opium.
- Children's playgrounds are safer, almost to the point of boredom, than when we were kids {I remember open-seated swings, five metre high slides, and no soft surfacing -- unless of course it had just been raining}. We didn't sue the council if we fell off, all it took to make it better was a mother's kiss and a dollop of Savlon.
- Telephones -- if you even had one, that is -- were big, ugly things, tethered to the wall in the hall; and no matter how desperate the situation, you never called anyone before six, nor spent longer than three minutes on the line.
Thatcher did a lot of damage, to be sure, but things aren't really getting any worse -- we're just getting easier to shock. It's human nature only to remember the good bits.Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
I'll second these headphones. I use the ER6N when I ride my motorcycle long distance. With them in, I cannot hear the engine run and keep my ipod volume set to 1/3 and can hear just fine.
If this post has multiple meanings, and one of those pisses you off, I meant the other one.
I hate ipod people. There is nothing worse than being on the London Underground, full stop, Unless you are stood 2 meters away from a person and able to hear their music.
I've also had the joy of being able to over hear their music over my own.
9 time out of 10 you when you look up to find who it is, they'll have the little white ear buds half hanging out.
If you love music so much, why use the crap cheap earphone that comes with the thing?
Go buy a decent pair, ones that other people don't have to listen to.
Last year when I went to Japan it had become socially unacceptable to listen to music which was audible to other people.
This came about as a result of the offending people being smacked in the face. I'm all for this remedy.
Be a have-a-go hero and smack an ipod user in the face. You'll be able to hear them coming and they have no social awareness so they won't notice you at all.
Your headphones are crap and I hate you!
This is very real threat. Headphone induced hearing loss happened to me. And I did not even have flash player or walkman.
When I was 35 I noticed that I often do not understand what people say, especially in noisy environments, while all other people around me understood each other. Medical exam revealed 30% hearing loss. Doctor questioned me about my history and we soon pinpointed it: between 15 and 25 I often listened to music via headphones at top volume for 2 or more hours at a time.
Now doctors recommend that I should wear hearing aid. I wish it did not happen. But such hearin loss cannot be cured at all. It can only get worse.
Doctors told me that if I do not start to wear hearing aid now, my hearing will worsen because the brain will pay less attention to a sense that is degraded, and that a sense of hearing, if not used, will fail as a result. And they pitched expensive hearing aid products.
I got suspicious and asked a friend who happens to be an ORL specialist. He said that these claims are false, aimed at selling the hearing aid products... and that my unassisted hearing would get somewhat worse if I started to wear hearing aid, but I would hear more thanks to the hearing aid. So I decided not to buy the aid. And I found that I can enjoy quiet music just like loud music. And subjectively my hearing improved somewhat.
I'm sure my hearing has been damaged from riding the NYC subways for many years. If anybody ever took a db meter on the Lexington Ave Express, it would probably pin the meter.
I also have been exposed to other loud noises from power tools, etc. Nowdays when I use my power wood working tools I wear hearing protectors (like the guys parking jet planes use). It may be a bit like locking the barn after the horse has been stolen, but at least my ears don't ring after I've sawed a few board feet on my table saw.
While the rest of us listen to music, they spend hours listening to silence or noise.
Nerd: Derogatory term typically directed at anybody with a lower Slashdot ID than you.
In France, by law and like all other earphone music players, iPods have a maximum allowed output power that happens to be lower than on the original product.
This is implemented in software by Apple: somewhere in the machine lies a small file that sets the max output level.
Guess what? Within weeks from the first iPod appearing there, the hack to remove this limitation went widely diffused over internet...
Herve S.
Oh you said deaf not blind. Damn, that joke only works in the real world.
I used to have a better sig but it broke.
I cant really understand why the above comment hasnt been modded up.Its so important.People need to know how bad it can get,with prolonged exposure.
Why does yahoo do this
People are becoming deaf. We can see it when comparing the sound quality of recent records. The sound level is higher than 20 years ago, the dynamic range is smaller. At high level, it gives the impression that all instruments are stuck to your ears. At low volume, its becomes a sonic mud. There is also too much volume on both extremities of the specter : louder basses, louder trebles. Example : Gorillaz's last album. Awful on an audiophile device or even a medium-range car system. Example 2 : Led Zepplin's remasters : seems as all the knobs are all turned up at the highest position. Except classical music, all recent records are designed for listening with a portable device, in a noisy environment, for deaf's ears.
Amplified music sounds great but does damage eventually along with all the other loud electric / motor induced noises of a modern society.
I damaged my hearing in the 80's with my loud car stereo with over 250 watts of power (low by today's standards).
Ironically, after damaging my hearing to the point of constant tinnitus, I cannot sit in a quiet room as the ringing drives me crazy. So I have to have some sort of white noise, especially when going to sleep.
No one young will listen to me, but really turn it down or wear ear plugs, otherwise you will regret it like me...
Most portable music players in the eighties, with their underpowered amp and chintzy headphones, did not deliver the same dB to the ear canal as most modern portable music players with their more powerful amps and earbud style headphones.
I don't understand why the noise cancellation headphones are so popular. They just reduce the background, making the cellphone shouters more clearly audible.
I use gray noise - equalized pink noise (See the Wiki). It covers up everything with an even background that you forget you're even hearing. Turns a busy office into an acoustic oasis. Even better is to pop in some plugs on top of that.
Indeed -- I currently own a Wharfedale pair (Diamond 8.4 -- among their low-end models). There is no comparable Bose at a comparable price. Indeed, I doubt there is a Bose with a comparable sound at any price. There are similarly-priced Boses and cheaper Boses (I used to own a pair), and they sound superficially OK at first (better than your average Sony or Panasonic, I'll grant you), but in the long run they're a subtle torture to the ears.
Wasn't this a alleged issue back when the stupid walkman came out? argh. I hate when history repeats itself...
This issue certainly isnt some misconception like the post that said - ' Hair Growth in palms if u masturbate'.
It is a scientifically proven fact that the loud music causes hearing loss.Although this Story essentially talks about loss induced by headphones,the truth is all the loud music we hear on our home music CD systems & other places is very harmful.
While every person loses sensitivity to high frequency sounds with age,these days young people are losing sensitivity - rightly titled "older ears on younger bodies"
My own ENT doctor has advised me against being exposed to loud music.Simple common sense tells that hearing to a head fone always isnt good either.
TAKE THIS SERIOUSLY & PROTECT YOUR EARS.
Why does yahoo do this
Must be time to buy a new phone.
Either that, or it is GWB's fault, not mine.
Sig? We don't need no stinking sig....
Why is this put on IPOD! headphones are headphones no matter what the player is.
Ipod is probably no more loud than any other player.It's the headphones thet usually make the difference.
Noise cancellation should (ideally) cancel all of the sound that doesn't come from the headphones themselves. Usually though, they are limited to a certain frequency band. In any case I don't think they discriminate between 'real noise' and human voice, for example. While it's technically possible to do it (cf. image denoising), I don't see any point why it should be done in those kinds of headphones, and besides it's a lot harder to do in realtime than simple cancellation.
Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
Same story, different year. People were also concerned about the newfangled walkmans in the early 1980s. No what? We're all doing fine. Like any kind of music (or sound for that matter), if you listen to it loud enough of course it will cause hearing damage but at a reasonable volume there is nothing to worry about.
I use normal $2 ear plugs (which drop the noise by ~30dB), and have my headphones over top of them (with the volume wound up ~30dB).
Of course if you're on the go and need earphones instead of headphones then those newfandangled Etymotic ER-6 earplugs sound like just the thing.
ok, just buy the bose speakers; your predilections will thank you.
Well, if I remember correctly, it was because they are exposed to very little noise, and then very loud firecrackers. It seems the constant and loud background of cities conditions the ears somehow.
So this sounds like a complex problem...
I'd rather go deaf then stand the endless chatter from my coworkers about the next episode of The Gilmore Girls...
There are four ways of dealing with not being able to hear your music over the ambient noise:
- Turn the music up to cover it. It's the obvious reaction, but while it may give a good listening experience, it risks permanent hearing loss.
- Keep the music at a safe level -- and be unable to hear much of it.
- Don't listen to music at all in noisy conditions. Safe, but fairly drastic.
- Use isolating earphones, which block out much of the external noise and let you hear the music at a safe level. This is the solution I use!
(There are also 'noise cancelling' earphones, which try to reduce external noise by playing the inverse; but IME they only cancel a proportion of the noise, and fail completely at high noise levels.)You're probably thinking of big, heavy, expensive form-fitting over-the-ear types, which tend not to be good for mobile listening -- but there are also small in-ear types which sit in your ear canal, and that's what I have. They're made of silicone, moulded to my own ears, and extremely comfortable; they also block out a huge proportion of outside noise, so I can listen at a much lower level than the train noise and still hear lots of detail. They have high-quality audiophile drivers, and the seal gives them great bass response too. They were pricey, but worth it to me both for providing a great listen and for saving my hearing. (These are the makers; I've no connection other than as a very satisfied customer, disclaim, disclaim.) I've also starting using 'em on stage for in-ear monitoring, where they do just as good a job.
They don't have to be custom-made; I believe Etymotic do some good off-the-shelf ones, though the fit won't be as comfortable nor the isolation as good. But please, people, if you listen to music in noisy conditions and value your hearing, do look into something like this. It can improve your listening both now and in the long-term!
Ceterum censeo subscriptionem esse delendam.
Have you ever tried comparing a Bose system with anything else? You know, actually do listening tests?
I have. I worked in the Audio department for about a year at Best Buy.
For starters, bose dictated sale prices to best buy - best buy couldn't just choose to put them on sale; they had to put them on sale when Bose corporate said to, which is why the circulars always said "All Speakers Onsale*" *except bose.
And the no highs, no lows, must be Bose does hold true. I am by no means an audiophile, but even my damn-near deaf due to rock concerts ears can tell they suck. I mean, the 201's and 301's aren't terrible speakers, but they are a bit muddy and much more expensive than, say, a pair of JBL bookshelfs that sound better.
The crux of the matter is the Lifestyles systems, though. The bass tube with the little cubes? Ugh. You're not going to get good bass out of a 6.5" woofer, especially if it's the unpowered one. If you do a sound sweep from like 50 hz to 50 khz, you're going to hear huge dropoff points all over the place. They just sound bad. Which would be acceptable for consumer electronics, if they were cheap, but they're upwards of $1000! The one with the dual cubes and the powered sub was $1300 when I worked there, and I bet it hasn't gotten cheaper. Give me $1300, and I'll get you some relatively inexpensive Sony tower speakers for front and rear, and a JBL center channel and 10" sub, and give you $400 back, and it'll sound vastly better (just going off of the brands that were there when I worked there). I know that sony and JBL aren't excellent names in home theater, but jesus, they're a far cry better than Bose.
It's not an audiophile thing. It's a listen to it and say ugh thing.
~Will
sig?
i'd like to walk up to some reporter who says/writes that trash and slap him saying "i have a minidisc player you dolt!"
and i'm spent.
(just to clarify i wouldn't slap anyone, but it's that annoying)
Corporate accounts receivable, Nina speaking.
JUST a moment!
Oh, and I don't need any sympathy. The truth is, I am not a lot more deaf than many people of my age. I'm just willing to admit it and get it fixed. My mother wouldn't admit it till she was 82, and it caused her a lot of problems. I get a lot less inconvenience from the hearing aid than the glasses I use for driving. Looking at other people fiddling about with Bluetooth headsets, iPod earpieces and so on, I basically plug in in the morning, put my phone in my top pocket with its loopset, and then the most complicated thing I do all day is switch to noise cancelling mode if the phone rings in the office. If manufacturers were really interested in a clever product, they would make devices with the same functionality as in the ear hearing aids which similarly communicated with phones, iPods and the like. Hands free, cable free, but I do get looked at as if I'm mad as I walk round making a phone call with no visible phone, no bluetooth headset...it's only a downside if you don't like people giving you extra room on the sidewalk.
Panurge has posted for the last time. Thanks for the positive moderations.
hearing loss is caused by high frequency sound
Hearing loss is caused by a number of factors; yes, loud sound can do it, but high_volume != high_frequency. Where did you unearth this particular piece of mis-information??
According to the the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association there are at least seven causes of hearing loss in adults. PS, "high frequency sound" is not on the list.
Neither is "marriage", but that's a topic for another time...
I want to drag this out as long as possible. Bring me my protractor.
As for you complaints about the Lifestyles system, you're obviously not the target audience. Take for example my Mother. She thinks they're cute and really likes that she can hide the speakers amongst all her nic-nacs. To be honest, I don't blame her. I'm not to familiar with all the available "micro" systems but Bose is the one of the few manufacturers that I've seen in brick and mortar stores. On a side note, I have a pair of my Dad's old 901's and they still kick ass after all these years (almost 20!!). Pair them with a sub and I have been perfectly happy. Although, IAMNAAudiophile.
I was simply making a point that audiophiles' hatred of Bose is predictable.
As is their hatred of a piece of wax paper stretched across a tin can.
Is that because they're silly audiophiles, or because the tin can speaker actually sucks?
yeah the Shure ones really suck.
I'm a DJ and in addition to my shows, I frequently go out to clubs to hear other DJs. I had similar experiences with ringing ears for days after a loud show. I tried foam earplugs, but they made everything sound terrible. I finally broke down and got custom "musician's" earplugs. Mine are Westone ES49. I've never been happier! These things keep the sound quality almost the same, just reduce the volume (mine have 15db filters in them).
What?
Speak up, I'm not a youngster anymore, I'm almost 30!
P.S. I'm waiting for the movie and cell phone reviews.
For castles made of sand must eventually return to the sea.
This story is about 25 years too late.
;-)
Too late? It's a record! 25 years between dupes? They'll never top that!
You can't take the sky from me...
The catchphrase "If it's too loud, you're too old", first started appearing in the late seventies or so...
Whoever said it first is currently very deaf and kinda old.
I've been using them for years and my hearing is fine. What? I said, IT IS FINE!
(Original joke format banned by slashdot mommy-bot)
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
For everyone who has their music cranked up to drown out the sound around you, I recommend some type of sound isolating ear buds. Personally I have the Shure e2c ear buds (cheap but effective). I ride a train to work and the sound can be a little deafening. Since changing to these I have moved from a 3/4-Full volume level to a 1/4-1/2 volume level. Everything is much more clear. My wife was always complaining about hearing my music while I'm wearing the standard head phones. Now she can't hear my music and I can't hear her complain.
This is the cultural equivalent of a Slashdot dupe, and I'm not sure how anyone can take Wired seriously as anything other than a source of hype.
I am a believer of momentum and curves.
I don't think it's a matter of discrimination between "noise" and not. It's just that steady signals are more efficiently filtered than intermittent signals. Hence, you can't hear the airplane engines, but you can hear the jabber. At least with the noise cancellation headphones I've tried. Perhaps the technology has advanced lately?
Meh, I'm not going deaf from the iPod, I'm going deaf from all the shooting I do...
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
Tim
I thought this was happening to me, too -- but then I realized that most of the holes on my Sony ear-buds had been plugged by ear wax. All it took was a pin and some patience, and my hearing was restored!
No, just dumb.
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
When someone considers the truth "pretentious garbage", that says more about the person than the "garbage".
Why does the media insist on putting a buzzword on everything, especially when it comes to the iPod. Portable players have been around for ages now, and the iPod isn't the only player around. Apple is getting free advertising and PR from apparently every media outlet out there.
Give me freedom, or give me deaf!
Why can't all fpga/microcontroller manufacturers just release free optimizing compilers???
SORRY, I'M AFRAID YOU WILL HAVE TO SPEAK UP!
Yes, you stupid lameness filter, I know it is like yelling... you see, that was done for comic effect.
Rhapsody in Numbers
Most /. readers already had to worry about making themselves go blind... now they have to worry about going deaf as well????
Take a course in biology and you'll learn that high-frequency noises are indeed related to loss of hearing.
The cochlea (inner ear) uses tiny "hair cells" to "catch" sounds (vibrations) and transform them into a signal that the auditory nerve can get to the brain. Different lengths of hair cells catch different wavelength of sound. Higher frequency noises (shorter wavelength) are caught by the shorter hair cells.
Those cells being shorter (thus smaller), they are somehow more fragile than their longer counterparts, so they are the first ones to die with age / hearing of loud noises.
Loss of hearing happens usually with the higher-frequency noises first, because of the reason stated above. This is the reason why old people have a hard time understanding what women say (higher-pitched voice) while being able to hear men much better (lower-pitched voice, higher chance that hair-cells for that frequency are still alive).
High-frequency noises will always be the firsts to go when going partially deaf. They all go eventually though. Higher wave amplitude (volume) will make that happen sooner. Canceling out low and mid frequency noises will keep some hair cells from being hurt, but if the high-frequency sounds still go through, short hair cells still get hurt.
Linky
Linky
Linky
After 3 days without programming, life becomes meaningless
- The Tao of Programming
Bite my shiny metal ass.
The "I did it and I'm Ok so it must be safe" attitude really is pretentious garbage. If you can't see that, get lost and go deaf already.
My Karma: ran over your Dogma
StrawberryFrog
I'll second that. The second thing I did on my first use of the QuietComfort(r) headphones, right after sighing "Ahhhhh..." was turn my Aireo down. Just no need for that volume when the sound reproduction is so good and outside noise is inhibited.
Well, apparently, you only have to fool the majority of people for a little while.
The e2c headphones allow lower volumes because of the sound isolation. Well worth the 100$. They damage your hearing less but are unpleasent to share and clean out.
To each his own.
I've played in many different bands but early on in my development I was in a group with a hanger-on who had a portable dB meter.
That particular band was proud of its extreme volume and the goal was to "peg" the dB meter at least once during a practice session.
I can tell you we did this on numerous occasions.
I believe that the thing topped out at 135 dbs.
And yes, it was damn loud. It got tiring after
a few times and I knew it wasn't very good for
the ears. In one case I know we blew up gear
that couldn't handle that kind of volume.
After this sort of chicanery and I started
working in a hearing aid plant and had my
hearing tested I took more pains to use
earplugs and moderate volume.
The test in an anechoic chamber was a
revealing thing - I could hear bodily
functions happening easily. Creepy.
At that time there was a slight lessening
of the high frequencies between 18-22 khz
and I was not surprised. I did a test
later and my hearing had surprisingly
improved just slightly but was about the
same.
My hearing definetely has some degredation
but is not nearly as it might have been had
I not employed earplugs on a regular basis
when playing high volume music.
I've probably sustained more damage from
attending concerts in my early days.
But the WORST damage my ears underwent was
when I was in a car with an insane friend
when we were young and dumb and he was
lighting whistling bottle rockets and
chucking them out the car at various things
and lit one and dropped it in the car and
it ended up under the drivers seat.
That thing whistling and exploding to this
day was the loudest sound I've ever heard,
even louder than witnessing the space shuttle
taking off, louder than the Concorde flying
overhead at about 800 feet. My ears rang
for almost a business week.
Interestingly, music became much nicer to play
after the ear fatigue was mitigated by earplugs.
Afterwards you wouldn't have that ears ringing
in a painful manner for hours (or days) feeling.
I don't bother with earplugs if I'm playing
acoustically at a wedding or devotional music
but high volume rock or jazz stuff gets the
plugs.
Your ears will thank you.
The story about the black holes is actually like 13.5 billions years late. And with gravatational lensing, it could be a dupe.
Brad
I once had the same problem with the NYC subway, which is extremely loud.
The solution you need is in-ear (as opposed to ear-bud) headphones. They'll block out most of the surrounding sound, and you can clearly hear hi-quality sound at low-volumes.
Apple sells its own in-ear phones, which are not bad but not great.
They also sell the Etymotic ER-6i's, which are fantastic but expensive.
They're even white, so you stick to the iPod style.
I have worked several jobs wehre there was EXTREME loud noise at the jobsite(within 10 feet of unmuffled generators and a carousel pipe organ that could be heard 2 miles away). I always wore earplugs, the simple wax or foam ones from the drugstore. I was the only guy on the job that did. Whenever i had to listen to something, i would remove the right earphone, I always kept the left one in. Additionally, when out walking around, i only use the right headphone of my walkman. I can notice a diffrence in the hearin on the right and left sides of my own head from the minor damage over the years. The hearing in my left ear is much more acute overall, and can hear frequencies that the right one cant.
All Troll + "offtopic" mods are meta moderated as "Unfair", because you abused the system.
Conclusion: the technology exists to fix these problems and enable people to listen at lower volumes, manufacturers just can't be bothered.
It's not entirely the manufacturers' faults. Adding technology to a product adds cost - even if you don't add any physical components, design complexity adds cost in design, testing, and support.
People already complain that the iPod is too expensive, and even technically savvy users will scoff at the discman/mp3 player/headphones that cost 20% more but claim to have Fancytronic Noise Goodification Technology(TM)(R)(C).
The users that know and care about these specific technologies and features will seek them out and purchase solutions like the ones you name. Most customers will buy the cheaper product unless they know better. You won't see this stuff included by default until a large percentage of customers know about it and are willing to spend extra for it.
What happened to the lugging a BoomBox on my shoulder generation? Or the walkman generation? or the discman generation? Or the 5 years of digital music players pre-dating the ipod?
NOW we are worried about going deaf? now we can carry huge volumes of music around with us?
Oh the irony of my word for the day:
To confirm you're not a script,
please type the word in this image: nonsense
random letters - if you are visually impaired, please email us at pater@slashdot.org
#hostfile 0.0.0.0 primidi.com 0.0.0.0 www.primidi.com 0.0.0.0 radio.weblogs.com
It's 2005. The deaf have it easy now such as closed captioning, video relay service, emails, etc. So join us you hearing heathens and we as the deaf community can be ONE!
Noise cancelling technology is already used in professional telephone headsets, and I am surprised that it is missing from iPods and the like
Amplifying non-noise signals VS cancelling noise? Hearing aids work often as in-ear amplifiers. So when you're 'cancelling' noise, what is probably happening is that you're just not amplifying the noisy stuff, and enhancing what you want to hear. This wouldn't quite work the same with an audio device, wherein the outside noise levels are independant of the music/etc being produced by the device
as an ex-artilleryman now suffering acute hearing loss,ear-plugs may have helped,but in 1939 they were unheard ofopr if they were woud haver been considered un-manly
I listen to my Nomad Zen pretty much all day at my internship (2-3 days a week). I have no idea what's a non-damaging volume, but my volume is frequently set at "12", which is a bit less than half of the max volume.
The office where I intern isn't amazingly loud, but how do I know I'm not delivering a 90+Db shock to my ears?
There is an extremely small minority (less than 5%) within the Deaf community that can handle these range (100 to 160 dB) consistently and even smaller sliver that they will be able to retain these similiar level of hearing as they advance into their later age.
The goal for preservation of hearing rests with conservative usage of these hearing. Not an easy feat by any stretch and measure.
Many factors are recognized in the even smaller minority (within these 5%) that prolonged and preseved these remaining hearing well into their advanced age.
All those factors are well documented in studies made for hearing-community.
You should recognizes these factors:
1. Career/Work environment noise (Data Centers and constructions).
2. Quiet home life (usually with sign language)
3. Recreational/Public place (Techno/ROCK concerts/auto-racing)
4. Happenstances (explosion, head-injury)
5. Genetic (not measureable by any survey, YET)
6. Childhood exposure (early the better adaptation by inner ear, by acclimation)
Just be aware of your surrounding.
You're not going to get good bass out of a 6.5" woofer
;-)
Yes, you can.
I'm also not an audiophile, but I can appreciate things that don't suck... and for $150, these put out a relative fuck-ton of bass from a 6.5" subwoofer. Why Bose needs an extra order of magnitude on the price tag is beyond me, though.
Maybe if good headphones didn't cost $300 for a pair of buds people would keep their ears a bit safer. However, if a pair of headphones cost as much as your music player or PC, why would you bother buying them and keeping your ears safe in stead of turning up the volume.
-illumina+us "I put on my robe and wizard hat..."
This is such bollocks, they said this when the walkman came out. Someone always has to bitch about something.
Anecdotes *are* useless on the individual scale.
If you consider not being a moron "pretentious", so be it. Such lines of faulty reasoning lead to pseudoscience and illogical conclusions.
If you don't have $300 bucks to protect your hearing, WTF are you doing buying a freaking iPod? Get your priorities straight! Your iPod will last a few years. Your entertainment will last a few minutes. Your hearing loss will last you for life.
Hint: You could've saved even more money by buy $20 earplugs instead of an iPod.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
Ha, I meant to respond to this post....sorry parent. As for you complaints about the Lifestyles system, you're obviously not the target audience. Take for example my Mother. She thinks they're cute and really likes that she can hide the speakers amongst all her nic-nacs. To be honest, I don't blame her. I'm not to familiar with all the available "micro" systems but Bose is the one of the few manufacturers that I've seen in brick and mortar stores. On a side note, I have a pair of my Dad's old 901's and they still kick ass after all these years (almost 20!!). Pair them with a sub and I have been perfectly happy. Although, IAMNAAudiophile.
These kinds of articles are as old as amplified music.
As for iPods, you only need to turn them up if the environmnet gets noisy, so is it the environment rf the music that's responsible for driving us deaf?
Arggghh....I swear I hit reply to zerocool's message...ohh well, I already tried again and it still didn't work. I'm such a noob. Hopefully he'll get the message as I don't want to make more of an idiot of myself.
34 year old commercial actor Paul Marcarelli (known for his simple question of "Can you hear me now?" in Verizon ads) has just been signed by Apple to represent their new line of iDeaf hearing aides.
Having a smoking section in a public restaurant is like having a peeing section in a public swimming pool.
It would be much better to "voice match" the front/center speakers than to have them come from different manufacturers. If you don't, you hear weird effects in movies as, e.g. a voice or other sound moves from one speaker to the next. It's even better if you match with the rear surrounds too, but most content doesn't use the rears as much and it won't be an issue most of the time.
Subwoofers don't have the same problems.
- AlanH
All you really need is something to take your attention away from all the background chatter. (tvs, telephone conversations, etc). If you have music loud enough that you can hear, but not so loud to actually totally drown out the background noise. I listen to music with headphones on with the volume set to the lowest setting on my Mac. I can clearly hear the music, but I don't have to listen to the drone of my PCs or every single word a coworker has to say to his teenage kid on the phone. etc
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
Sadly that isn't true if those idiots vote. Then common sense will not prevail, they will instead vote in welfare for them because they cannot work, and those of us smart enough to listen to loud music will support those idiots who ruined their own life.
Or worse yet, they could vote to make hearing illegal, and then surgically remove our ear drums so we can't hear any better than them.
Remember, democracy is two wolves and a sheep deciding on what is for dinner.
I do subtitling and video editing where I work. They won't give me an office, so I have to do the work in a "public" area that I share with two other coworkers, that everyone else walks through or stops and bullshits in.
This sucks flaming horse cock when I'm trying to edit or subtitle, since I need to be able to hear the video files, not my coworkers - two of which are incapable of shutting up for more than a few minutes at most. All of whom complain when I'm editing without headphones.
Headphones were a filtering defense, then they were necessary for work, now they're both - and after a couple of years of this, my upper midrange is pretty much GONE.
The downside? If you're right in front of me in a crowded space, I can't hear you at all.
The upside? Smashing Pumpkins doesn't annoy the shit out of me anymore.
I'd rather have headphones stuck in my ears and be listening to power noise while I'm shopping for pants than to be subjected to Rod Stewart, Phil Collins and Soul Asylum, thank you. Given the choice between headphones and eventual hearing loss and having to listen to the inane drivel people call "words" all day - and the even more infuriating stream of diarrhea they call "pop music" - I'll take the headphones, kthks.
Whew!!
Never thought that typing 'u' would cause such a stir - Iam surprised it matters so to you guys.I thought such acronyms convey the meaning anyway.
Infact, I have seen it being used in even top level business mails !
Anyway I'll correct myself.
Why does yahoo do this
Although a few people might like to make the argument that those who listen to thier IPods too loudly are genetically abberant, it is thier ears which are damaged, and not thier DNA.
So basically, unless you get a micro-mechanical fix, it won't matter what your DNA looks like. And to make matters worse, this is one of those sensory systems that is set up once (during early development) and expected to perform over the entire duration of your life. So natural healing is not an option.
Simple noise cancellation works by taking the inverse of the 'noise' signal. This can be done with simple analogue circuits, there's no need to analyze the noise in any way. This doesn't care about any details about the signal, so persistent noises are cancelled just as well as sudden ones.
Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
The biggest problem is that the normal responses to a loud environment is to crank the volume up.
Earbuds make this worse because of their utterly crap isolation compared to circumaurals.
Good circumaurals and noise cancelling headphones of any type reduce background noise, reducing the volume that you listen to the actual music at because you don't need to drown out the background nearly as much.
Noise-cancelling circumaurals are the best in loud environments. I've heard the Bose QuietComforts are one of the few Bose products that aren't highly overpriced/overrated, although you can get amazingly good ANC for high-bass environments much cheaper. (I recall reading the Bose had a closed-loop ANC system, which can cancel much higher frequencies than the typical el-cheapo open-loop ones.) You can get Philips HN100s and HN110s for $15-20 including shipping on eBay, which are great on trains, in airplanes, and in cars. I have a pair of HN100s and LOVE them.
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
Are they implying that this whole headphone thing is something new?
I know, I hate losing base, or even sub-base.
However I do like base fishing, and playing base fiddle.
We play the game with the bravery of being out of range
"So now you have a choice... go deaf early or go insane listening to your coworkers chatter."
Or you could just tell yoru coworkers to shut the hell up.
If they're chatting amongst themselves...they shouldn't be. If they're talking to customers or discussing work related tasks, they can keep their voices down, or go somewhere else. Workplace noise caused by loud people is not a "fact of life" it's a "fact of poor management and inconsiderate people".
Amen! For your money you do far better with almost any other brand. Many, many moons ago I worked at Circuit City and had the chance to closely compare all the speakers in the selection (Polk Audio Speakers sounded the best to *me*). The key is to compare different speakers (2 at a time) with music you're very familiar with and choose the ones that sound best to *you*. Also make sure the base, treble, and any other sound enhancement settings on the receiver you're using are set flat and that no Sub is engaged (unless it's part of the package you're gonna buy).
:) But they are way overpriced (and ok, some of their products are crap - like the bose center channel).
Bose knows that on a side by side comparison with some of the other audio brands they are likely to no come up on top, this is why the Wave Radio (and the "Acoustic" version) are direct mail purchase items - except in rare circumstances such as a Bose outlet store). They try to get you listen to their product in an environment where you won't have easy access to the competition (plus it would be a pain to return it in the mail, so you feel compelled to just keep it).
I'm not saying Bose is a bad brand overall (especially when compared to say cheap boombox speakers or tv speakers
Back on topic, OSHA has guidelines as to what noise level is appropriate according to how long the noise is to be endured. A sound pressure level meter may be a good investement for some (or you can try to borrow one). Take it home and listen to some music and make a note on how far you can set the dial before you get into the dangerous 90db + zone (or 85 db according to some). In the case of portable players you can put your headphones next to the meter's mic (as close as your ears would be) and make a note of where the dial is set. Note that of course some music will by nature be softer or louder but this should give you a good basis to enjoy your music in a safe manner. (On a side note a SPL meter is a great way to balance out the sound levels of your speakers).
Georgia Tech, the leader in Chia(tm) technology.
Take a course in biology and you'll learn that high-frequency noises are indeed related to loss of hearing.
They are related in the same way that the poor handling of an automobile is related to a flat tire. Yes, the handling does go away when a tire is flat, but saying "poor handling is caused by flat tires" is disingenuous at best. Compare this with the previous poster's statement that hearing loss is caused by high frequency sound.
The fact that the high-frequency hearing loss occurs first doesn't mean the loss was caused by the high-frequency sound.
I want to drag this out as long as possible. Bring me my protractor.
I have some "experimental" evidence that what you're saying is true. The test subject is myself. I played drums professionally for about 9 years on the road and the hearing in my left ear is not as good as it is in the right one. I attribute at least part of it to my hi-hat cymbals (and, of course, my non-use of earplugs). There was also usually a bass rig on my left side as well, plus my monitor, so it wasn't all the cymbals, but I am sure that having those things that close to my head for that long didn't do much good for my hearing. Hindsight being what it is, I would have done more to protect myself, but 20-somethings are generally invincible, so I didn't...oh well, not a compliant, just an observation.
Those are my principles, and if you don't like them... well, I have others.
Groucho Marx
I've sold Bose speakers. They *really* are crap IMO. Overpriced by a factor of ten, and kept that way with a Bose-imposed price floor (if you sell em cheaper, Bose will give you the boot as a dealer, or at least that was the way of it back then).
It annoys me to no end that so many cars have Bose factory stereos these days - for the price, you can do so much better.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
901s are humorous. A single full-range cone, ensuring bad-everything-but-midrange. Multiply by 9 and you get bad-everything-but-midrange 9 times as loud. But heck, for free they're a great deal!
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
This is not a problem with IPods. This is a problem with loud noises, which are fueled by the fact that there's plenty of other loudness nearby.
For example, I listen to music or a movie on my computer - it has to have a minimum volume as the computer fans make noise. (Not counting the CD/DVD vibrations.) In order to make the music audible, it has to be louder than the PC itself, and that can risk damage. As far as I know, it is rather difficult to find a Quiet PC without having to resort to specialist equipment (availble only via Internet basically.)
I also find that it is too little room between "off" and "loud" - in general, both the speakers volume and the Windows sound card volume have to be very close to no sound.
There's also other minor problems, such as music volume not being normalized (at least in the older music players) - a quiet 25dB song is immediatly followed by a 110 dB "ACTHUNG BABY!!!".
BTW, this isn't isolated to the so-called IPod generation - it can also be a problem with society. I was forced to attend a high-school "concert" which played loud heavy metal (complete with head banging against the floor), which lasted 40 minutes. I haven't checked how much that damaged by hearing.
Why are concerts played at such high volume?
In the late 60s/early 70s there wasn't much choice; P.A. systems were primitive and oriented toward vocals, and guitar players basically had to crank up their on-stage amplifiers in order to be heard in large venues. The sound was generally atrocious.
These days we have modern sound reinforcement gear, guitar amplifiers are mic'ed or directly injected into the system, and most venues have good audio setups and repeaters with delays so that everybody can theoretically hear the performance everywhere. Yet we still have bands that play so loudly that their fans have to wear earplugs.
It gets really strange when you're enjoying a performance and you notice that everybody around you is wearing ear protection just like you are. Why don't they just turn down the volume?
Actually, you can get plenty of low bass from a tuned enclosure, you just can't get *accurate* low bass. It's easy enough to get quite satisfactory 40Hz response, but it won't necessarily match the input signal, you might get a nice 40Hz thump from a 60Hz thump in the signal (OK, more realistically 42 Hz). Strangely enough, this sounds fine for explosions and gunfire and other typical computer-speaker content, so it keeps gamers happy. Fidelity is much more important for music than for sound effects.
At the other end of the spectrum, there are any number of high-priced allegedly-audiophile speakers that use the same stupid tricks to get louder bass from ports or passive radiators, and they all sound like crap to me.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Long ago, I listened to some Bose 501's and they blew my old speakers out of the water: deeper bass, great sound. My old speakers were garbage, though.
Anyway, every time Bose comes up, people say it sucks. When asked "why?" one will say "it has no bass," another says "it has too much bass," two others will say opposing things about treble.
I'm starting to think it's just "cool" to say they suck.
Bose are quite over-priced (but I bought mine refurbished), and they sell terrible tweeter-only narrow-band center channel speakers, and they refuse to release frequency response charts (which is a very bad sign) so maybe they do suck. But it seems many of those who claim to be "audiophiles" are the same people who buy "magic" speaker wires for $2,000 that need to be "broken in" before they have the right "essence" or "fluffiness" some such BS, or claim records are better than CDs. So, I don't really belive them.
Anyway, someone give me a good reason why Bose sucks. Well, in addition to them hiding basic facts like frequency response.
PS: my refurbished 501s are now my surround channels, I recently bought 21-year-old DQ-10s for up front and have a Cambridge Soundworks center that was the only full-bandwidth center I found at the time. No, it doesn't have the same tweeters as my DQ-10s, but as they are all full-bandwidth they sound great together. Audiophile I am not, but geek who like great sound for cheap I am.
I got it.
sig?
Oh, I certainly agree. But, I was just going on a couple of quick ideas, 1.) it has to be cheap, and 2.) it has to sound "good enough", i.e. good enough that if I pop in Blade or The Matrix or whatever hot 3d sound movie is out now, i'm going to like how it sounds.
I said sony front towers because they make (or made) a decent tower that's got 2x6.5", a midrange that's like 3 inches, and a tweeter for $250/pr. JBL has one, too, but it's like $500 for a pair, and if I was going to add a good center channel (~$200 range), decent-but-cheap rears (~$150-$200), and a sub (~$250), and keep it under the lifestyles system, i had to make compromises. $250 + $250 + $200 + $150 = $850, and you'll get a much richer sound and satisfying system than the lifestyles, and pocket $400. You could still do it with all JBL speakers, for under $1300, and have a massive, awesome sound.
As another responder pointed out, though - you can't compete with the "smallness" and "cuteness" factor. I have to conceed that.
~W
sig?
You got your scathing rejoiner wrong.
Its because European "socialist" government do look after their people that things like legislation is put in place to limit the maximum volume of consumer electronic appliances like ipods, therefore saving the taxpayer from unnecessary expenditure with regard to hearing loss.
I think you meant to rant about tyrannical Nanny-states and the erosion of personal freedoms.
Plays violent online games as: Nerfherder76
The in ear headphones Apple sells are fantastic in terms of speaker quality, but altogether dangerous in terms of the blast of noise they deliver directly into your ears. It will be interesting to see if this makes it to court. On the one hand, it is difficult to argue that hearing loss is a result of anything other than the end user playing music too loud too often. On the other hand, Apple doesn't exactly provide information on what is safe--and neither does anyone else--and it could be that listening to earphones at any discernable volume for an extended period of time is damaging. I'm interested. I've lost a significant amount of hearing in only a couple years, attempting to drown out either boredom (while landscaping) or physical agony (while running) almost every day. --Petey
One would suspect that Sony would make a center to match the towers that would fit in this price range.
- AlanH
Has anyone else had the same thought and done any kind of analysis on hearing aid company stocks over the last 10-20 years? Hell, I don't even know if any hearing aid manufacturers are publicly traded companies!
On a side note, I've also had thoughts regarding stocks that would always perform well, even in a "lackluster economy", such as tobacco companies, alcohol companies. I guess I wasn't alone, as someone created a mutual fund along these lines called the Vice Fund that invests in tobacco, alcohol, gambling and defense (ticker: VICEX). It's been doing well. Maybe I should do some research on the hearing aid companies...
...the Japanese eventually capped the volume on the devices. The very first models were much louder than today's.
O'WONDERWe're working on it.
With my creative zen and in-ear earplugs (probably comparable to whatever comes with ipod) I listen to music on "1". If it's very noisy, say on a bus then I crank it up to "4". If I'm listening to it at night when I'm lying in bed by myself it's at "0" (yes at 0 it still produces sound just much less than 1). Scale goes up to "99" and it's deafening around 20.
My hearing compared to my friends is much better but they tend to have their music playing so loud that I can make out the words when they're across the room using in-ear headphones.
There are 11 types of people, those who know unary and those who don't.
Perfect.
Welcome to the slashdot generation.
What is the alternative, going deaf because of stupid noises that our jobs expose us to?
I'd much rather go deaf listening to The Dark Side of the Moon and my own music compositions than go deaf because of the stupid buzzer that says 'fries are done' or the one that says 'customer has entered the building' or some sort of jackhammer, or any of a million other ways that I could and will go deaf on the job. Not everyone has a cushy fairly silent cube-farm job-many jobs are downright dangerous, especially to hearing.
My hearing is not as good as it was in 1995, but it still somewhere around or above average (I had awesome hearing in 1995). Besides, if I ever lose my hearing, I'm changing my major from computer science to something like computer-science-medicine-cybernetics or just plain medicine.
GENERATION 26: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation.
Mabye he got a Free iPod!*
*I do not support in any way the Free Ipod jerks who have spammed the hell out of the gnutella/email networks.
GENERATION 26: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation.
And, they do; however, I just was never as impressed by is as I was with the northridge JBL center.
But, looking back, I'm quite sure that the sony center channel of the same series probably matched the auditory charastics of the sony speakers.
In which case, we're just back to buy whatever makes your ears, wallet, and decoration happy.
~W
sig?
but relying on us army stats for ww2 sounds like it would paint a rather misleading picture given that they were absent for so much of the war.
note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
If you look at his recent posts, I think you'll find that Moofie mostly wants to tell people how stupid they are.