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Earbud Headphones May Cause Hearing Loss
benr writes "According to an AP report, the earbud headphones that are so popular for ipods and other portable devices may lead to hearing loss. From the article: "The big culprits aren't the devices themselves, but the tiny 'ear bud' style headphones that the music players use. 'Unfortunately, the earbuds are even more likely to cause hearing loss than the muff-type earphones that were used on Walkman and portable CD players'""
TFA describes the in-ear headphones as being less capable at blocking ambient noise than the "earmuff" style phones. That leads me to believe they're actually talking about the old school in-ear phones, the kind that just sort of hang in your ears. Newer ones, like the Sony Fontopia in-ear designs, actually fit all the way into your ear canal. These actually are pretty good at blocking out exterior noises -- in fact, they take some getting used to. If they're going to lead to hearing loss, it's probably because of the amazing bass response for such small phones. I don't work for Sony -- there are other, similar brands on the market, but the Sonys are the only ones I've used.
Breakfast served all day!
I also had a similar experience, though it was with normal headphones. Ever since that I don't use any headphones or earbuds. Though a lot depends on the kind of music one is hearing. But if you play it for more than an hour everyday some kind of damage is bound to happen even if you play the lightest kind of music.
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Researchers also reported that eating too much sugar makes you fat, smoking can make you cough, and using Microsoft products can lead to security concerns.
Seriously, do we need to be told that loud noise can lead to hearing loss? Are we so dumb that they need to dredge up a story that first ran with the invention of the Walkman?
It's good to use your head, but not as a battering ram.
I am only 38 and have a bad case of Tinnitus. For those lucky bastards who don't---look it up and take very seriously the amount of noise you get. I work downtown in a LARGE city and I always put in earplugs when I am walking to lunch for an hour or so. I started doing that after taking a decibel meter outside with me one day. Amazing how loud life is now.
I don't think that's really your ears. Every set of headphones seems to be a little bit louder on the left side I notice. When I switch them around and wear them backwards the right sounds louder then.
My ENT says (jokingly) "earbuds are great - they are going to pay for me to retire". This, just before I was tested (left ear normal, right ear SLIGHT rolloff, but normal for my age- yeah, I'm in my mid 40s) - there was a young kid in front of me - he had just gotten the bad news - he was going to need hearing aids - in his late teens - attributed to way too much LOUD noise.
The ENT was saying - if someone standing next to you in a quiet room can hear the music - it TOO loud
I have good in ear phones - and wear phones because of some other hobbies - but at reasonible volumes - I know the exact day I got that roll of in the right ear - I was dumb - Now, I always have a pair of foam earplugs with me - always - and I'm NOT afraid to put them in (carry an old altoids tin with "handy stuff" in it - bandaides, some meds, a spare $20, some coins, the earplugs, a lighter, etc)
-- 73 de KG2V For the Children - RKBA! "You are what you do when it counts" - the Masso
I totally agree - I've been looking at the Shure range recently and the E2Cs have a different design - check out the picture of them: http://www.shurecanada.com/images/e2c_large.jpg
There's this weird bulb thing where the cable connects, and then a stalk that turns sideways and then the actual main bulb thing that goes inside your ear. I tried to get them to sit properly and the back bulbs got in the way. I tried twisting them around and just messing back and forth with them, and never really getting them to sit properly.
The E3Cs though, felt a little weird for a second and then sat fine. http://www.shurecanada.com/images/e3c_large.jpg
link to sound file so we can do this?
From the article: "The rule of thumb suggested by researchers at Boston Children's Hospital is to hold the volume of a music player no higher than 60 percent of the maximum"
So these "researchers" think that the following aspects of consumer electronics are all standardized or constant enough to stake children's hearing on some magical "60 percent" setting?
* power and efficiency of each device's headphone amplifier
* gain of each model's volume control
* efficiency of each model of headphone/earbud
Spreading advice like that is reckless and potentially false security.
Why would any different style of speaker be any more or less likely to cause hearing damage vs another? Surely the only thing that really matters is the volume at which the sound hits your eardrum.
Earbuds may be closer to the eardrum, but the sound that comes out of them is far less loud than that of a speaker (for comparison, plug your earbuds in and listen to them from the same distance that you'd listen to speakers from. clearly they're FAR more quiet). Therefore they make up for the closer distance to your eardrum by being less noisy. As a result, you should be just as likely to get hearing damage from speakers as from earbuds, assuming you listen to both at the same perceived volume.
All that the article seems to indicate is "In a study published last year in the journal Ear and Hearing, researchers at Harvard Medical School looked at a variety of headphones and found that, on average, the smaller they were, the higher their output levels at any given volume-control setting.". So basically smaller earphones are more sensitive. Duh? Basically all they're saying is that you dont have to turn the volume knob up as high for small buds vs big headphones.
At any given volume, earbuds aren't any more likely to cause hearing damage than headphones or speakers.. it's just that it seems people are too dumb to realise that they have to turn the volume knob down when they change to different brands/styles of headphones.
The research doesn't show that earbuds cause hearing damage, it shows that excessive listening to music at excessive volumes causes hearing damage. It just so happens that portable music players gives the option for many people to listen to music for large amounts of time, and that most portable music players come with earbud style headphones. This is not causation.
In the end, the best way to prevent hearing damage is probably "in-ear phones" or "canalphones". See etymotic, shure, sony, sharp. They are just earphones that go deep inside the earcanal and use a material (usually silicone or foam) to make a seal with the earcanal to prevent any external noise from "leaking" in. Thus, you dont have to turn up the volume to allow you to hear your music over cars, computer fans, tvs, etc... Thus, your music is at a lower volume and your hearing is happier
For proof, btw, I personally got hearing damage when i moved away from canalphones and instead bought some full-sized headphones. They were both very bright in sound (lots of shharp trebble) and open (lots of sound leaking in, meaning i turned it up more). That combo did more damage than earphones ever have
I always hold my phone to my right ear. My sense of hearing is noticeably desensitized in this ear. This has been obvious to me for a few years. I think any device that sends a signal to one ear more than another will create similar results. I don't consider in-earbuds any more damaging than any other speaker.
Standing on the shoulders of giants.
The rule of thumb suggested by researchers at Boston Children's Hospital is to hold the volume of a music player no higher than 60 percent of the maximum, and use it for only about an hour a day.
I often listen to headphones at work for the entire day (I'm a software engineer and I find music less distracting that people chattering around me. A 60 minute limitation to prevent hearing loss would mean a big change in my routine -- and I don't listen to music very loudly -- probably around 50% of the volume, about what the article recommends.
Another "point" of the article is that if you like to listen to music a lot with headphones, but are concerned about hearing loss, considering using over-the-ear closed "muff" style headphones which can bring greater focus to the music at lower volumes.
I'm fairly sure the loudness in movie previews is caused by a tendency in recent years for audio producers to make a sound "louder" by amplifying the audio signal.
About 5 years ago I met this engineer who'd received one of those "technical award" Oscars. Y'know, where they have a hot actress hang out with a bunch of nerds for a pre-taped awards ceremony. Something like that.
Anyway, he was part of a team that came up with a system to address complaints that those trailers were too damn loud. And they were. Because, once digital audio became the mainstream, engineers would max out on the volume during the trailers, each trying to outdo the trailer before it, pushing the specs to the limit with explosions, shattering glass, booming music, etc, thereby bombarding the eardrums of most of the audience.
There were a flood of complaints. Like in the thousands. If you watched movies about 5 years ago, you'll remember it, or at least that Simpson's bit with the THX sound causing people's teeth to shatter.
The new specs, if I remember this right, mandates that a trailer's audio can get loud for an explosion, but it could only sustain that volume above a certain threshhold for a set amount of time during the trailer (like there's some kind of loud amplitude maximum duration). Also, maximum volume levels were set overall.
Again, if I'm remembering correctly, an engineer now has to run his mix through some kind of "verifier" that makes sure that everything is within specs, and it's not, I think they have to pay some big fee.
I believe this was an MPAA project, and I do remember the guy saying that after this was implemented, complaints went down to zero.
First off, the method being referred to of increasing loudness is called ultra-maximizing. There are many tools that do this now, including the pioneering software tool Waves L1.
The second thing you refer to is the loudness of trailers. Please do not mistake that with the level of the THX trailer. The THX trailer is a very precisely-engineered bit of audio that allows easy verification of the audio calibration of a surround listening environment. While people used to complain about the amplitude of the THX logo sound, the fact that the theatre vibrates at the end of the sound (at the "The Audience is Listening" portion) means that the theatre's sound system is in alignment.
The third topic you mention is trailer loudness, specifically in relation to the Trailer Loudness Standard. The Trailer Loudness Standard was created by the Trailer Audio Standards Association, which took on the task of standardizing the way trailers are mixed.
Jory
Good headphones should be perfectly balanced. The most likely culprit is your volume control. Many volume controls don't track well, espically at lower volume levels, so you can get imbalances. Another possibility is that one channel of the amp is oscialting, or otherwise having problems. Either way, switch your source, I bet you find the headphones are equal volume.
Put in/on your earware with the music turned off. Make a quiet sound that you can hear, e.g. by running a fingertop over some cloth (if you use open earbuds) or tapping something solid (in case of canalphones or closed headphones).
Now turn the music on, and make that same sound again. If you're not able to hear it because it's masked by the music, the music is too loud. Turn it down.
Please use good isolating canalphones (Etymotic, Shure, Sony) or, if you cannot get used to them for whatever reason, closed over-the-ear headphones. Both types reduce the outside noise, so you'll be able to (and you should) listen at a much lower volume and still get all the details. Open earbuds are evil.
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n the end, the best way to prevent hearing damage is probably "in-ear phones" or "canalphones". See etymotic, shure, sony, sharp. They are just earphones that go deep inside the earcanal and use a material (usually silicone or foam) to make a seal with the earcanal to prevent any external noise from "leaking" in. Thus, you dont have to turn up the volume to allow you to hear your music over cars, computer fans, tvs, etc... Thus, your music is at a lower volume and your hearing is happier
Exactly.
I've had an ipod for about a year now, and used to keep the volume between 80%-100% when I was out and about, because that level was requred to drouwn out the surrounding sound with the stock earbuds.
I bought a set of Shure E2C's about two months ago, and find myself listening in the 20%-40% range, and having to take the earbud out for things like talking to clerks at stores more often. I use the foam inserts with mine, and they work great.
Actually, I've got an appointment with an audiologist tomorrow to get my hearing checked. It'll be interesting to hear what she says.
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The Fligor & Cox article (Ear & Hearing, 2004) took an average safe level across a bunch of commonly available portable CD players and different headphones. In this study, the 60% mark was the average safe point for 1-hour of listening per day (using current NIOSH damage-risk criteria). Certainly, you can have much much louder levels at "60%" of your volume dial. This is dependent purely on the outputs of your headphones and your stereo/portable music player.
/. when it's published.
If I remember correctly (sorry, on vacation, article is at home), it was actually 70%... but whatever. 60% is even safer, and would allow longer listening time.
That, unfortunately, is the best sort of generalization that one can make, due to the variations in output levels of portable electronics and headphones. There are, of course, some warning signs to heed. If you have ringing in your ears, or notice a temporary hearing loss after using your headphones... they are way too loud. Some good earphones do exist that have a fairly flat response, that attenuate sound from the outside. Shure and Etymotic Research both make in-the-ear type earphones with either custom-fit or foam-plugs that keep outside sounds out so that you can reduce the volume in your ear.
We're working (Dr. Fligor and I) on a follow-up with mp3 players. Should be done in a couple months. I'm sure it will hit
"Tinnitus is horrible (ringing in the ears), but it's also common to suffer damage in the 3-6 KHz range, where much of the understandability of speech is"
I have just that problem. After too many years of listening to loud rock music in my youth I have the strange situation of still being able to hear very high frequency sounds well for my age (late 30s, could still hear
17khz at company medical a few years ago) but I can have trouble understanding what someone is saying if the enviroment is noisy, whereas other people around me have no problems. Its wierd because I can hear the sound of the voices no problem, but my brain sometimes just can't work out the words.
If you have a good earbuds - they may actually improve your hearing. Etymotic ER4P, for example (the ones that I have), provide great noise isolation, so you don't really have to turn your volume all the way up - even on a New York subway train you can enjoy a quiet and pleasant music in those. So in fact, good earbuds can _improve_ your hearing - especially in New York Subway (if someone have ever been on "Union Square" station for 4/5/6 trains will know what I mean ;) ), simply because you won't have to hear all that noise and enjoy the music instead.
One possiblity is that electronics/audio people often do have to work in situations where they wear a headphone with just a left-ear input (this is in situations like a TV station or film crew where the audio person needs to communicate with other people on set). Because of that left-ear only design, the workers might have slightly worse hearing in the left then in the right and compensate for it during recording. It's a stretch, but it might be a possiblity.
Nice theory, but if you think that music is mixed only "by ear" and nobody's watching a set of VU meters and other instrumentation to make sure the sound stage is set correctly then I'm fairly certain that you've never done this yourself. :-) At least any in any recording setup I've ever seen there is a lot of initial setup by ear but then things are all run through and verified with instrumentation.
I sort of go along that vein, using a distant cousin of the ear bud: in-ear monitors. These actually seal up the ear canal relatively completely, isolating the music from outside noise far better than ear buds (think ear plugs and headphones combined). And I never feel the need to turn my music's volume further than halfway.
So I don't suffer from over-loudness, but of course one consequence of this is that I am pretty much deaf to anything outside the headphones, so I can't hear people talking to me like you can. But IEMs or other similar noise-isolating/cancelling headphones are nigh necessity on the NYC subway, as far as I'm concerned. There's probably far more people suffering hearing loss on the subway here than anywhere else, as they crank to 11 to kill off the scream of the trains.
I've got the same type of headphones and play games all the time on my computer. I keep the volume turned down really low so I can barely hear it and have actually trained my ears to be more sensitive. It's not a good thing though since it sounds like everyone talks too loud nowadays...
Isn't this another case where the tool is demonized in stead of the user? There is nothing about these headphones that forces you to turn the volume up to 10 all the time (or 11, if you have the Spinal Tap model)! In fact, I have often wished I had earbud headphones. Why? So I could turn the volume down.
If you listen to music in a noisy environment, you should ask yourself: Do you really want to add more to that already almost deafening noise?
As for tinnitus, it's a real pain. My right ear has been ringing ever since I foolishly acted as the starter in a school athletics competition. Didn't have hearing protection on, still have tinnitus. The event was 19 years ago.
I think the big problem is that you have to crank up the volume quite a bit with those bud-style earphones to get something approaching decent sound quality. Small wonder why hearing loss problems are increasing.
The new in-ear portable headphones don't need to crank the volume so high for decent sound quality, hence these actually may not contribute so much so hearing loss.
While the ear bud style may be frequently turned up to loud, this is even more true for in-ear headphones. The problem is compounded by the fact that in-ear headphones are designed to provide sound isolation which makes it impossible to judge volume level based on surrounding noise. A similar thing could probably be said for ear buds, but you can always hit the mute button and easily hear what is going on.
AJ Henderson
I've got a set of noise blocking earbuds, really handy on the bus and planes. Too handy actually. I ended up having to insert a "wakeup" track into what I'm listening too so I don't drift past my stop in isolated bliss.
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One of the greatest earplugs I know of are here - http://www.etymotic.com/ephp/er20.aspx - the Etymotic ER-20's. I've heard nothing but great things about them on head-fi, the super audiophile site. I've been putting off getting a pair for almost a year now, though. I figure if I'm off to any concerts in the near future, I'm getting them. I once wore my Shure E2c's at a concert because it was so loud. I got a few funny looks, but my ears were okay. :D
I just crossed from office-geek into "don't stare and walk away slowly" dude.
I don't think that it's really that weird, unless you think of "anyone trying something new" as weird. Automobiles and electric lighting were all new at one point...
I suspect that the enjoyment of a media is greater when you have more related stimuli firing that your brain can tie together.
People like bass. I doubt that this is because low notes are just really neat, but because they can *feel* the bass -- vibration and air pressure differences on their skin. A chair that has an embedded subwoofer could produce some of this effect.
Video games that have audio triggered by various in-game events, producing a synchronized audio-video simuli, have stomped silent video games.
There have been some attempts at games that produce even more synchronization between audio and video. A number of games now have not merely sound effects triggered by game events, but adaptive music. The game state affects the type of background music playing -- Lumines, Total Annihilation, all kinds of newer games. Your brain gets to tie together finger actions with music.
There have even been some video games which alter game state based on audio -- for example, Vib-Ribbon and Rez have game events triggered in synchronization with the audio as *well* as audio that adapts itself to game events (and, for that matter, outside of the US, Rez had a vibrator that one could hook up to the game via USB to provide tactile feedback). Now, Rez didn't sell all that well, but I strongly suspect that this was because it was too unusual for people to try it out -- the people I know that *do* play Rez are generally pretty rabid about it. The concept of associating more stimuli to produce a more enjoyable experience generally seems to work pretty well. The same approach seemed to work well for Dance Dance Revolution.
I've seen a lot of game designers take the idea of tying more forms of stimuli together, but they often just seem to think something along the lines of, "I should make a game based on music", and then the game doesn't really rise above anything other than a game oriented around music. There's no real reason why you couldn't take *any* of the types of games that currently have background music (i.e. almost all of them) and simply synchronize various game events to the music.
I wonder how well a full-body suit would sell, something that provides tactile stimuli that could be synchronized with audio. I mean, yes, it would be expensive, but I also see vendors for audiophiles selling multi-thousand-dollar cables, amplifiers, and headphones to try to reproduce that sensory experience crafted by the musician just a *little* more accurately -- surely, just adding more stimuli to the mix would be more worthwhile.
I wonder when the RIAA (which dearly loves moving to new formats and forcing everyone to buy their audio over again) will try shipping music in a new format, where it can contain video tracks or tactile tracks. If they want to be less ambitious, at least lighting tracks -- coming up with a standard where you have, say, eight lights each containing R, G, B elements, and allowing them to fade or flash to various colors in time to the music would seem to be a pretty cheap and compelling way to get people to purchase new music all over again.
WinAMP and various computer-based audio players try to automate the above via beat detection and use extracted data from the audio stream as input to a video image. However, as people who have tried this out know, not only is automated realtime beat and rhythm detected far from perfect, but elements of the music that are quite pe
Any program relying on (nontrivial) preemptive multithreading will be buggy.