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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'""
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.
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
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
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.