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Study Links Personal Music Players To Hearing Loss
fprintf writes "A recent NY Times article discusses links between personal music players and hearing loss. This is not anything new; personally, I have hearing loss from listening to my Sony Walkman cassette player many years ago. However, given the widespread use of the personal music players, I see people using earbuds everywhere; is there a technical solution to the potential danger?"
s there a technical solution to the potential danger ?
Yes - very technical. Turn down the volume.
Don't turn them up so god damned loud.
ASCII stupid question, get a stupid ANSI
What?
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Unfortunately, most people play them way to loud so the only technical solution is to limit the output.
However, since many people find louder music *sounds* better unless every device maker does it those who don't may be at a competitive advantage; leading none to do so other than as Apple did as an option; which was probably more about limiting legal liability than anything else.
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
But it also threatens permanent hearing loss for as many as 10 million Europeans who use them, according to a scientific study for the European Union that will be published Monday.
I don't know if this is the report but the Scientific Committee on Emerging and Newly Identified Health Risks (SCENIHR) released a report on this in June [PDF Warning!]. It's not as long as it looks, about a quarter of the pages are citations to other studies. It looks quite comprehensive. It's important to note that this is not a simple thing to study. The report points out several times that your age and daily exposure and anatomical structure all play an important role in what you can tolerate before experiencing hearing loss.
The abstract from that report:
Exposure to excessive noise is a major cause of hearing disorders worldwide. It is attributed to occupational noise. Besides noise at workplaces, which may contribute to 16% of the disabling hearing loss in adults, loud sounds at leisure times may reach excessive levels for instance in discos and personal music players (PMPs). It is estimated that over two decades the numbers of young people with social noise exposure has tripled (to around 19%) since the early 1980s, whilst occupational noise had decreased. The increase in unit sales of portable audio devices including MP3 has been phenomenal in the EU over the last four years. Estimated units sales ranged between 184-246 million for all portable audio devices and between 124-165 million for MP3 players.
Noise-induced hearing loss is the product of sound level by duration of exposure. In order to counteract noise-induced hearing loss more effectively, a European directive "Noise at Work Regulations" taking effect starting February 2006, established the minimal security level at the equivalent noise exposure limit to 80 dB(A) for an 8 hour working day (or 40 hour working week), assuming that below this level the risk to hearing is negligible. The 8-hour equivalent level (Lequ,8h) is a widely used measure for the risk of hearing damage in industry, and can equally be applied to leisure noise exposures. The free-field equivalent sound pressure levels measured at maximum volume control setting of PMPs range around 80-115 dB(A) across different devices, and differences between different types of ear-phones may modify this level by up to 7-9 dB. The mean time of exposure ranges from below 1 hour to 14 hours a week.
Considering the daily (or weekly) time spent on listening to music through PMPs and typical volume control settings it has been estimated that the average, A-weighted, eight hour equivalent sound exposures levels (referred to "Noise at Work Regulations") from PMPs typically range from 75 to 85 dB(A). Such levels produce minimal risk of hearing impairment for the majority of PMP users. However, approximately 5% - 10% of the listeners are at high risk due to the levels patterns and duration of their listening preferences. The best estimate from the limited data we have available suggests that this maybe between 2.5 and 10m people in EU. Those are the individuals listening to music over 1 hour a day at high volume control setting.
Excessive noise can damage several cell types in the ear and lead to tinnitus, temporary or permanent hearing loss (deafness). Published data indicate that excessive acute exposures to PMPs music at maximal or near maximal output volume can produce temporary and reversible hearing impairment (tinnitus and slight deafness). Major discrepancies exist between the results of the studies on permanent noise-induced hearing loss in PMP users, with both, positive and negative studies published. Tinnitus and hearing fatigue may occur more frequently in teenagers chronically exposed to music, including PMP users, than in non-users.
In addition to auditory effects harmful, lasting and irreversible non-a
My work here is dung.
Just give everyone isolating IEM's with iPods, and they won't have to blast the volume and losee their hearing!
I can't stand sticking anything in my ears. I bought myself a cheap $5 pair of headphones for my iPod with inline volume control on the wire. An added bonus is that it helps to shield my ears for the cold Michigan winter.
Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.
maybe if the environment around us was quieter, we wouldn't need to turn our {ipod,discman,walkman} up so loud to block it out!
SURELY NOT!!!!!
Some players have a dB-limit that can be activated. I remember that my old CD mp3 player did have this. It just did not allow the volume to be cranked up too high.
If it was hard to write it should be hard to read.
These look cool, might do the trick... I think they're vapor though as I'm not finding them anywhere for sale. http://www.coolgadgetconcept.com/semicircle-headphones-keep-you-out-of-trouble/
Should I tag this story noshit or !shit?
Because this is NOT news and I have no sympathy with those people who screw their own ears with music that is way too loud.
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power lost.
they let me listen to my music on a train at a dramatically reduced volume.
I've noticed, many times, that I start out with a fairly low volume (maybe 10% or so), and when a good song comes along, I turn it up a bit. However, by the end of the song, I don't really notice the higher volume anymore, and the next time I get a good song, I turn it up a bit more, until the player is at its maximum volume.
If I take the earphones out of my ears, put them back in an hour later, and turn on the player, I'll pull them out of my ears as fast as I can because the music is so horribly loud.
So the solution, I think, is having a "volume boost" button, which boosts the volume for the duration of the current track, and gradually decreases to the normal level during the next track, to avoid stacking up the boosts.
To see if you've got the volume turned up too loud, take out the earbuds and hold them in front of you in your open hand. If you can tell which song is playing, the volume is too high. Added benefit of turning it down: You no longer annoy your fellow man.
only the strongest eardrums survive. I for one welcome our new steel-eardrummed overlords.
no, you turn up the volume, to compensate for the hearing loss. If you listen to music so loudly that it could cause hearing loss, you are obviously not interested in hearing any other sounds anyway.
Study links cigarettes to lung cancer.
This is not hatred. This is retribution. This is not revenge. This is justice.
"...is there a technical solution to the potential danger?"
Education. Lots of films. Let's get a grant.
Does bone conduction cause the same problem? If not, Vibe Body Sound Headphones may be an answer.
There is no "-1 offended" or "-1 you don't agree with me" mod options for a reason.
How does that help? If you have hearing loss, the obvious solution is to turn UP the volume, so you can hear the music better, of course.
I crave a higher volume the more I listen. The loudness itself actually enhances the music the more I listen in single session.
I can understand that loudness can cause hearing loss that requires more volume to hear, but I find the urge to up the levels in single sessions before any long-term damage is locked in.
I wonder if some dopamine systems are involved
Seriously, this is a "Ric Romero" report to borrow a Fark term: High volumes for extended times cause hearing loss. News at 11. The only reason why portable players are any more significant in this than anything else is that since you can take them with you all the time, you have the opportunity to do the wrong ting more often.
There is no technical solution, because the maximum output of a player depends on the headphones plugged in to it. Plug in some low impedance IEMs with high efficiency, and you'll find that it may be able to produce SPLs in excess of 120dB no problem. Plug in some low efficiency high impedance professional phones, and you may find it struggles to do even 70dBSPL. Thus you can't set up some sort of magic limit that'll be ok for everything. A limit that would protect your ears with Shure IEMs would be damn near inaudible on Sennheiser 580s.
There are two things you can do to protect yourself:
1) Turn the volume down. Really, it is that simple. Just don't set the things so loud and it isn't a problem. That is ultimately what you have to do.
2) Get phones that isolate better. The reason why some people abuse the volume dial is to try and drown out noise. Don't do that. Block the noise instead. Instead of cheap earbuds, invest in some good IEMs. Yes, it is going to run you $100-300. Deal with it. If you can drop hundreds on a iPod, you can drop hundreds on good phones to go with it. Then take the time to get the right fit for your ears so they create a good seal. That will attenuate sound nearly as much as good earplugs.
With good earphones, you should be able to keep the volume down and still enjoy the music. You keep the volume down, there's no problem.
Loud noise, no matter what the source, is dangerous to your hearing especially over long periods of time. Playing loud music on speakers is just as bad as headphones. Only difference is you can do it all day on headphones and nobody will yell at you. Just turn that shit down to a reasonable level. If you can't because things are too noisy, get better headphones to block the noise.
there was work on sound via bone induction. Is that around and was it improved? And does it work in stero?
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
...most of the folks that use gadgets are completely oblivious to their surroundings. The other day, one guy who was listening to some kind of rap music, was almost run over by a car as he simply crossed the street against the traffic signal.
In a number of cases, these folks play their music so loud that it even disturbs those around. With this, they put themselves in their own world, make gadget sellers like Steve Jobs rich and place themselves at risk. Ironic!
Gadget makers insulate themselves from the long arm of the law by using a "disclaimer" for lack of a better word.
I DON'T HAVE AN MP3 PLAYER AND MY HEARING IS JUST FINE!
Although DJing white noise in an industrial club every other weekend probably doesn't help
Today's weirdness is tomorrow's reason why. -- Hunter S. Thompson
Some people turn up their music so that it really is loud in their ears. Most people, however, turn it up so damn loud to get the desired signal (music) above the background noise: car traffic, car interiors, subways, crowds, airplane cabins. When the noise floor is already pretty loud (50-80 dB), you have to pump up the volume on that music player ever higher to be able to "hear" it. There's psychoacoustics involved beyond just the overlapping audio sources. Music played that loud, even if it doesn't seem loud (because it's only, say, 10-20 dB above the noise floor) is actually well above the NIOSH limits on what can be a safe prolonged exposure. Result: hearing loss.
The only real solution that will allow you to hear your music (or cellphone, for that matter) without having to crank it up to damage-inducing volumes, is to reduce the noise floor. This can be done pretty easily with passive noise attenuation - padded headphones can give you a few dB of attenuation of low frequencies, and tens of dBs at higher frequencies. Earbuds offer almost no passive noise attenuation, although they could do a little bit if they sealed off the ear canal. Unfortunately, big padded headphones are a lot more conspicuous than little white earbuds, and they didn't come with your iPod, and you can't easily stow them in your pocket.
The other alternative is active noise reduction, like the Bose QuietComfort. You can even find noise-cancelling earbuds, although they tend to not work as well. Unfortunately, ANR doesn't come cheap if you want something that actually works and doesn't ruin your listening experience. Still, digital signal processing with low-power components will probably make this more widely-available in the future....if you can still hear anything by then.
I'm more worried about the people I see driving around listening to their iPod. It seems to be a big thing where I live. They'll be in their cars, white earbuds on, moving their head to the beat of the music, oblivious to any noise being made at all. It really scares me.
I'm 34yo engineering, I like long walks... oh wrong forum. I was in the lab debugging some equipment with a younger engineer, maybe 23 or 22. I noticed one of our hubs would emit a high pitch sound when network cable was plugged in. I demonstrated it to the younger guy but he couldn't hear it. It freaked him out because I'm 10 years older and can hear things he can't. I asked him if he has an Ipod? Yup. Do you listen to it load? Yup....
>>is there a technical solution to the potential danger?"
I used my mp3 player on a couple of flights. When I into a quiet hotel room and used it again i was shocked at the volume level i had used on the flight. If you are on a plane (train or buss as well), you tend to play it loud to drown out the bakground noise.
As I fly quite a bit, i bought a pair of noise reduction headphones. I went for a $75 pair at first, as I could not see the point of spending $300 on the Bose headphones. The $75 pair were pretty rublish, not much effect at all, so I splashed out another $300 on a pair of Bose noise reduction phones. They may be expensive, but they are worth the money as you can use a much lower volume setting and still hear everything very clearly.
I really recommend them as a way to protect your ears if you travel by plane, train or bus a lot. The luxary of having a cocoon of tranquility on the flight is also very nice to have.
Offtopic, Inflammatory, Inappropriate, Illegal, or Offensive comments might be moderated up.
And to prevent blindness Slashdot implemented a filter. Thanks Slashdot!
Shai Schticks:"You don't make peace with friends, you make peace with enemies"
...my study indicates that this is a correlation and not a causation. I show that a lack of common sense is more apt to cause hearing loss.
blog |
The earbuds aren't designed to seal the ear canal so people have to run the volume so high on them to get above the noise level.
Apple's only concern is to include the cheapest headphones possible. Unfortunately, the white earbuds are a (pathetic) fashion statement, and they sound good enough that most people keep them.
If you're at home or in your car, use regular speakers. If you're at work, get noise-reduction headphones because they'll let you listen to your music at lower volumes because it won't be competing with outside noise. If you're walking around in public, you probably shouldn't be using a PMP anyway, since you could easily find yourself too distracted to notice the sound of an approaching car or something like that. I know a guy who witnessed a teen getting splattered across a road because she was listening to her iPod, and didn't even notice that she was crossing over into a busy street.
I have no idea what the volume levels on my cell phone mean. I can group the 1-10 scale into quiet, loud, louder and loudest, but where is 89 dB in that 1-10 scale? I have no idea. It would be helpful if the manual listed the dB levels that the factory supplied headphones are capable of generating at each volume level. As it stands the manual for my Ericsson doesn't even mention the headphones.
Murphey's fighting Occam, and we're in the stands.
Did anyone really need to do a study on this?
I used to use a pair of these even when out and about. Yeah they might make you look a bit silly, but there are upsides. The sound quality was awesome (as far as I can remember). Also, a driver approaching you as you cross the street can plainly see that you've got music on and may not be able to hear them.
I found it remarkably easy to "get over" receiving funny looks, and really enjoyed the quality of the sound.
These days the kids play their music on their mobile phone *speakers* for crying out loud. What is it? Do they actually hate music so much that they'll squeeze it out of a mobile phone in crap-o-sound form?
mind: boggles
Since when does listening to music make your eyes stop working? i swear most of the people who do that are just plain stupid
"The problem isn't just the ear butds. There's a LOT of ambient noise in offices today, thanks to noisy fans in computers. "
Another reason to use thin clients. Now if we could only look at the hearing loss amongst IT professionals.
Shai Schticks:"You don't make peace with friends, you make peace with enemies"
This way, I don't have to stuff earbuds in my ears - I'll just listen to your music from 10 feet away. At that distance, it's safe for MY hering. If you want to go deaf, that's your decision. After all, what's the point of being able to hear if you won;t listen to common sense anyway?
Seriously. Just blast it out. Keep in mind, though, it can have serious health consequences ... and not only to your ears ... if you choose to play crap like Celine Dion or The Village People or Achy Breaky Heart or Techno-Pop or ... whatever ... you could find your ear buds "accidently" wired to the mains.
The correct URL of the COPE study is:
http://irc.nrc-cnrc.gc.ca/ie/cope/index_e.html
Really, #2 is the key here. Most cheap headphones are completely open - they do nothing to block out sound. So when your surroundings are noisy, the only option is to jack up the sound.
While IEMs are the best way (there are some reasonable choices for under $100 as well) to block sound, another option is to look for closed headphones - ones that completely cover the ear and don't have any vents or anything to let outside sound in. These are the kinds you see DJs wearing - after all, they need to be able to listen to what they're spinning through the deafening blast of huge club speakers. They're not as ultra-portable as IEMs but many find them more comfortable.
Make a player that you can only turn up to 9.
Bad boys rape our young girls but Violet gives willingly.
I got myself a pair of these headphones: http://www.trustedreviews.com/multimedia/review/2006/03/20/Acoustic-Authority-iRhythms-A-9900-Sound-Cancelling-Headphones/p1 - Acoustic Authority iRhythms which are noise cancelling. Pair it with my Samsung T10 and you have cost effective quality audio with sub 60khz bass to knock your socks off (if you like).
I reckon people turn up their earbuds so they can hear bass or treble but really anything out of an earbud is going to be tinny - especially if it's coming out of an ipod. I'm pretty sure if they got themselves a decent pair of equipment like those they wouldn't feel like compensating for anything with volume.
Just as has already been stated: If you listen to stuff too loud it will damage your hearing...
But is this so much of an issue? You can turn down the volume yourself...
I find that places where you can't affect the volume are a much bigger problem. I always have earplugs when I go to nightclubs these days, I don't want my tinnitus to get any worse. I can't tell the DJ to keep it down, but I also want to go out.
A lot of movies are insanely loud these days, but fortunately there usually are quiet passages to let the ears rest.
For me the worst damage to my ears has actually come from a rather surprising source: My own kids. We even measured 110 dB (in front of the mouth) from one of them when they were little. So what to do when they are crying? I'm not gonna go running for earplugs every time I need to attend to them...
I guess the bottom line is everything taxes our hearing. Wise people protect it to a sensible degree.
.: Max Romantschuk
..and tagged "stupid." Seriously, this is just dumb. Every time I see something about headphones = hearing loss, it just irks me. It's not about the headphones or earbuds, it's the LISTENING VOLUME that is potentially dangerous. But come on, that's common sense. These article titles are FUD. But I get it, they want people to read their articles. No one's going to give a shit about an article entitled "Study Finds Listening To Music At Very High Volumes Leads To Hearing Loss." Might as well write an article entitled "Study Links Resting Hand In Fire to Third Degree Burns."
Most people I know turn up their volume on their PMPs to drown out ambient noise - for example they use them on the bus, while sitting at the back in a huge crowd of people who are either talking or wearing their own excessively loud music. Or they're walking down a busy street and find car noises less pleasant than metallica. So they crank up their shitty ipod earbuds to drown this out, where a simple pair of GOOD earbuds would cancel out [a large part of] the noise and make this unnecessary.
Stuff.
The real problem is to determine whether you are playing the music too loudly for your safety. Here is how to get a good idea of the harm you are doing ...
1. Find something like a watch or other device that makes a very quiet sound. Find a distance where you can just make out the sound.
2. Listen to your music source at your customary level for 15 to 30 minutes or longer if that is your habit.
3. Set up the conditions in (1) above and see if you can still hear the sound. If you can, you are probably not harming your hearing ... If not, then you have a temporary threshold shift and you have already done some small amount of damage to your hearing. The greater the shift, the greater the damage.
4. More likely, if you listen to loud music or listen in inherently noisy places, you will notice the threshold shift in daily life. background noises disappear, which is like 40-50dB SPL, and definitely a problem.
These hearing conservation links explain a lot Mp3 players are not the only culprit, driving with wind noise in your left (or your passenger's right) ear, circular saws and construction tools, and other sources of noise are damaging. Music is different in that it can not be blocked but can be controlled.
If you don't protect your hearing from loud sound, sooner or later a notch will start to form in your ear's frequency response curve. The notch will be centered around 4000 Hz, right where high frequencies get really high, and useful too. That notch widens above and below until it impacts 2KHz or even lower. Somewhere along the way, the detectors in the ear will get so damaged that they start detecting sound non-linearly and harmonic and intermodulation distortion arise. Finally, when they get injured some more, they start to fire "all or none" and even moderately loud sounds can be painful. That is called recruitment and is really damaging to hearing and sanity.
I hope this information is useful to readers. I hate to see people lose hearing when it is so unnecessary in most cases.
If you think your hearing is going bad, see an audiologist or ear doctor or both, soon. Most processes can be stopped, and believe me, you will be glad you at least stopped the damage.
I am pushing 60 years old, have used threshold shift changes to remind me to protect my hearing, and still have no noise notch in my good ear. My other ear was damaged by childhood infections and is mostly useless so I guess having only one ear made me more careful.
Being a graduate audio systems engineer, one thing that springs to mind is to make speaker drivers in headphones less resonant between 3-5khz. It seems all I hear on bus/tube journeys from people listening to music is the hissing zingy twang of cymbals and guitar distortion.
The fact that this range is around the resonant frequency of the human ear canal means that this (already quite prominent) range of frequencies is amplified further by your body.
If earphones were more linear in their response perhaps people wouldn't damage their hearing as much - or turn up the volume.
I am glad slashdot if text
-- dnl
Apparently a number of people who try to slit their wrists do so with common kitchen knives. Is there a technical solution to this? Should kitchen knives all be sold as dull as a butter knife?
A dumbass is a dumbass. If you blow out your ears with your iPod you have no one to blame but yourself.
I piss off bigots.
"I see people with earbuds in everywhere, is there a technical solution to the potential danger?"
There's an incredibly easy answer - don't live with your earbuds in.
Get implants to feed auditory information directly into your brain. This would bypass the ears entirely, saving them from damage.
For better styling, you can go with a wireless implant so that you wouldn't have to "jack in" to get audio input. (But if you do this, you just might start hearing voices in your head... and they could even be real!)
Learn ASL .
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
We need a 'duh' tag here. I mean c'mon, personal music players linked to hearing loss? Who couldn't have seen *that* one coming?
The atmosphere and objects in the environment naturally dampen high frequencies. So, if you are listening to a set of stereo speakers 15 feet away, the high frequencies are significantly reduced compared to if you put your ear right next to it. Likewise, putting an earbud in your ear means that there is NO roll-off (dampening) of high frequencies. As a result, your ear is getting a huge dose of high frequency noise. Proper modeling of this and filtering of high frequencies would go a long way to curbing hearing loss. Don't count on people turning down the treble on their own. We've grown accustomed to it, and really the hardware should do it for us.
Scientists have recently discovered that water is wet.
Bad puns gave me bad karma. =(
Listening to music is a waste of time, because it is a passive entertainment. Adding to it the damage from high volume is just an icing on a cake.
I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
I have suffered a lot of hearing loss in the 1KHz range(the vocal range).
Younger years spent in a marching band, then gigging at clubs, and finally producing digital music with headphones way too loud have taken their toll.
Most people don't know it's bad for your ears to be subjected to that strong, constant change in SPL for extended periods.
There should be warnings with every set of headphones sold. Though that's where I draw the line. I think a simple warning label is enough.
They're using their grammar skills there.
Buy a good set of headphones or you'll wind up at 40 with a hearing aid (speaking from personal experience) $50 is a lot cheaper than $1500 and all the inconvenience.
Well.. I think is some ways its the "shoppers mentality". When you go out and buy an item, you don't really want to spend a significant amount on accessories.. a buyer wants the complete package. Hence why manufacturers of MP3 players throw in the headphone - but the manufacturer is competing in a market so wants to splash out on say the player and put minimal allotment to the headphone. When you buy a car you expect a decent set of tyres especially if you buy say a luxuary/sporty model. So if your ipod cost say (shuffle)$49 you are going balk at spending $40 on some headphones.. if you have say a touch at $229, then definitely yes. How about this: 1. can manufactures offer units without headphones. You can chose to buy their standard, their high end or you go off and get your own. 2. people should use their volume limiters. 3. Realise that by cranking up the volume, you are compensating for surrounding noise. Get some proper earphones sand stop being so cheap as it may cost you alot more than loss of hearing. With noise isolation, I even use these as ear plugs with I am walking past a building site/road works.. or on the subway. Actually I find that I am now more sensitive to loud noises.. because I have been used to a lower background noise level. Anyway, I have had Shure E2s, E3s / Sony MDR-71sl / Sennheiser CX400. I wanted something in black and discrete. - the Shures are really good, but I personally had a lot of problems with the 3.5mm connectors - they kept breaking and i would lose sound in 1 earphone. And they are too bulky. I even had custom inserts - brilliant, but everyone thought I was hard of hearing as they were flesh coloured.. - Sony, for a long while (I had around 4 pairs over 4 years) were great cheapish ($25) in ears. I loved the short lead, especially in conjunction with the ipod remote. - Sennheiser, best balance between price, sound quality and noise isolation. Definitely recommend! Thanks
Not a scientist by any means, but am fairly certain that many headphone wearers crank up the volume inappropriately high in a pointless, unconscious bid to "feel" the music, as one does via speakers or at concerts.
Besides the obvious solution posited by a few numbnuts here- turn down the volume- I would argue this problem will only lessen the day some kind of personal sub-woofer is invented. Sounds silly/impossible, granted, but until that happens many of will continue punishing our ears unthinkingly as we strive to precisely reproduce the rich, chest-thumping sounds of our stereo systems....
My eyes only go forwards. My mum had eyes in the back of her head though, maybe you do too.
I walk around a city a lot, and I've been shocked my how much I rely on my hearing for knowing where cars are -- I've stepped into the path of an electric car a couple of times recently. Since then I've started to look out more.
What you want are "in ear monitors" a.k.a. "canalphones." These are like earplugs with a sound transducer in the center. They attenuate ambient noise by up to -23dB, depending on the model. With that much attenuation, you don't have to turn them up to dangerous levels to hear them, even on the subway. They're designed for musicians so they can hear what they are playing on stage without blasting it over everything else. They coil up into a pouch that fits into your pocket. Plus, they sound very good. Some have reference quality sound and will sound better than any other pair of headphones available unless you listen in a silent room.
Downsides: if you can't handle a plug in your ear then you can't use them, but you can get a custom molded earpiece that makes them very comfortable. Also, the cable can conduct handling noise into your ear, though this isn't a problem with the "pro" versions that hook over your ear or the ones with very thin and pliable cables.
The biggest downside is you cannot hear anything around you with them on, which can make them very dangerous to use in traffic and other situations.
Manufacturers include Etymotics, UltimateEars, Sensaphonics, Shure, and probably a couple others. I've been a big fan of the Etys/Sensaphonics. I recommend the Etymotic ER-6i. Get the ER-4P if you have more money to spend and want better sound. Both of these are high impedence models that work well with an ipod or laptop without a separate high current amplifier.
Once you start using these things you will be spoiled for anything else.
The bigger problem is that I can't fit these music player ear buds in my ears with these stupid hearing aids!
Make an ear bud like a tube or adapter to a hearing aid. That'll be the next big thing once everyone goes mostly deaf.
Somehow along the way I made a bad choice in life and now must live with 0 Karma.
I take a train to work every day, and sometimes (thankfully rather seldom) there is a cell phone "town crier" on board.
I was once treated to a performance that could be best described as, "a bitch, bitchin' with another bitch, about yet another bitch."
But I have a pair of these: http://reviews.cnet.com/headphones/shure-se530-sound-isolating/4505-7877_7-32327764.html?tag=mncol;lst
After she started yapping, I put them on, and could see her lips moving, but never heard a thing ... and that at a low volume level.
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
When you get off the meth, freaking out when doing 50 in a 55 when you see a cop car will be in the past. And then feel free to go 55 in a 55. If you can only do 56 or more in a 55, stop drinking. When you CAN do 55 in a 55 (under ideal conditions), consider yourself CURED. Until then, you don't know how to drive very well, regardless how well you THINK you can.
Yes. You hear because the hair in your inner ear vibrates.
bah-bah-boom-ching!
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
work in ear nose and throat doctors office. the doc was seriously excited about the audio bone headphones i saw on giz a few weeks back. evidently bone conduction is a lot less harmful to the ears than earbuds. http://www.audioboneheadphones.com/
Speak up!
Back in the 70's, studies came out showing that people who used earphones were subject to hearing loss. I have significant hearing loss in my left ear. I think it is from years of driving with the window down.
Steve jobs will love it - big, non-removable warning stickers about hearing loss on all iPods.
No sig today...
Ten minutes more and you'd have been the victim of air rage.
There's nothing more annoying than morons on public transport who think nobody else can hear their headphones.
No sig today...
Either we turn down their mp3 players for them or we get to listen to them whining about how "nobody warned them" in 20 years time when deafness is the norm.
Turning down the mp3 players will suck up less tax $$$ so I think it's the correct choice.
No sig today...
http://www.oticonusa.com/Oticon/Consumers/Products/Epoq/Streamer.html
Hearing aids are getting better. This one does bluetooth audio for use with phones and ogg players.
Better though, I think, would be to have my glasses provide subtitles.
This what i believe is what the truth. Read all of it do not scan it!
If the artists (for example: Green Day) don't care about their music, why should I?
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
"A recent NY Times article discusses links between personal music players and hearing loss."
:-p
That's what you kids get for listening to such garbage today!!
Several European countries have already or are currently adding laws to the books to regulate sound emission in all sorts of areas, not just the workplace. For examples schools--no longer can the school band practice wherever and whenever they want, now it has to be in a room with an SPL meter and a timer. Awareness of hearing loss is increasing constantly, but slowly.
One approach to managing high sound levels is the increased production of personalized (molded) high quality earplugs. Far superior to over-the-counter plugs, it is possible to make these plugs with a flat attenuation that actually sound better (more balanced) than your natural hearing. There is no reason this sort of tech can't be applied to earphones, its just a matter of investment and appropriate tooling. Advances in rapid turnaround custom fabrication technologies are helping.
All true, but honestly, my iPod earbuds sounded far superior to many of the other cheap ones I've used. The absolute worst ones I think I ever heard were the pairs some of the airlines hand out for you to use, to listen to satellite radio with. (They've got the volume and channel change controls built into the armrests of the seats, and you plug the earbuds right into them.)
The problem with the poor quality ones is, they don't reproduce some of the sounds accurately - so you wind up turning them up louder to hear the words a singer is singing, or what-not.
Background noise is a big issue too, but even with it quiet around you, cheap ones still have this separate issue.
Do we really need a study to tell us this?
Instead of spending $300 on Bose headphones with active noise cancellation, consider spending $80 to $100 on some headphones that simply block background noise very well.
As I type this, I am listening to music on my Sennheiser HD-280 Pro headphones. According to Sennheiser they provide 30 dB of attenuation for background noise. They simply seal around your ears and passively block noise.
I was talking to a world-class expert on audio stuff one time, and if I recall correctly he was concerned about the noise canceling headphones possibly having a negative effect on your hearing. The active noise cancellation works by measuring the noise, and generating more noise with the phase opposite; if all goes well, the noise and the anti-noise cancel. But the active cancellation is pumping more energy out right next to your ear.
I'm not 100% certain I am remembering correctly what he said. I mean, if you wear the active cancellation headphones and the noise sounds quieter, doesn't that mean that less energy is reaching your ears? I'll have to ask him when I see him again. But that will be too late for this Slashdot discussion.
But you can spend less money to get a simpler device that passively blocks noise, so it seems like the way to go in any event.
By the way, I am quite satisfied with the audio quality of my HD 280 Pro headphones. They are the best headphones I have owned so far.
http://www.headphone.com/products/headphones/sealed-and-noise-canceling/sennheiser-hd-280-pro.php
There are other sealed headphones you can get, including several that are under US$30.
http://www.headphone.com/products/headphones/sealed-and-noise-canceling/
Protect your hearing, folks. You will miss it if you lose it.
steveha
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
While not a licensed audiologist, I want to make a quick point. Our ears hear beyond the normal 20hz-20khz range. We actually can hear up to 40khz, but we are not conscious of the sound. Our brain still responds to sound about that level. Normal sounds in nature create sound waves and harmonics far above even 40khz, they go on essentially forever. Most headphones only go to 20khz, if that, and most players only go to 20khz. In addition, regular CD quality ends at 22.4khz, but one can encode at 40khz with software relatively easily. But, in order to completely eliminate listening fatigue, one has to have every piece of eqipment, every mic, every sound board, every computer, every connection, ready and able to handle frequencies above 20khz very well. The thing is, without those upper frequencies, our ears get tired really quickly. Damage comes soon thereafter. And chances are, until we all get a GIGANTIC stimulus check, and have already bought our beach houses, we won't have a regular recorded media that is good for our ears. My suggestions? Good symphony concerts in the park.
-Alan
(Sorry to bust the patent bubble, but..)
I have an Alpine head unit (IVA-300? Something like that) that drops the volume a few notches when it's powered off. That way, when you start the car up again, and your ears aren't yet desensitized, the music doesn't blow your head off.
It's great, and I think all music players should have it.
X (or more) decibels will dammage your hearing.
Keep your volume below X moron.
While we're on the subject... 99% of bars and bands are fucking morons who destroy their fans hearing.
There should be a fucking bylaw or something.
Also, GET OFF MY LAWN YOU BASTARDS!.
(have to yell because the little fuckers have hearing loss)
We can't limit the volume, because what about me? I need that volume boost because I am deaf. I physically cannot understand what is playing until its at least a 10 in my car. Yes, its loud, but my deafness is not noise induced, its genetic.
I've always commented that if the music is loud enough that I can clearly hear it - Its Too Loud. If I can hear the bass in the car next to me - Way too loud. But hey - they'll be the same people to push hearing aids as a stylish accessory and with more people buying them, drive the cost down!
I replaced my earbuds with Sennheiser PMX60 neckband headphones and will never go back. I ride a bike and have never had an issue and I can still hear the traffic around me. For jogging you would need a sweatband to hold them on so maybe in that case earbuds are OK with the volume reduced. Headphones are much better than having loud noises right next to your eardrum and IMHO the music sounds much better. I agree with the common sentiment - turn down the volume or suffer the consequences.
on a mobile device... Hearing isn't the only distraction that leads to unfortunate encounters...
You don't enjoy music because it is loud.
Society has conditioned you to hear music loud for a variety of reasons, music is based in rhythm, harmony, melody and certainly volume, but is the combination of all those what makes music enjoyable.
Don't believe me? Stand in a busy traffic intersection for 15 minutes and please do tell us that you enjoy the noise.
I also exercise a lot, so as a fellow exerciser I can tell you that if you are feeling pain you don't know what you are doing, I could go at lenght to explain this, but the "no pain no gain" fallacy was dropped at the very least in the 90s, so I am surprised there are people out there still subscribing to this nonsense; second if you are numbing the pain with even more painful noise I fail to see how you can possible rationalize that such situation is desirable at any level, unless you have a self destructive personality, in which case you still may benefit to pause and think; finally, whatever exercise you are doing, to know that you crank up the volume to avoid road noises tells us that you are an accident waiting to happen, unfortunately more often than not people distracted by their "music" are not the only ones injured during an accident.
You may know this situation is bad for you, what you should not forget is that it may be bad for others.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Slashdoter: DR I AM GOING DEAF!
Dr.: stop using headphones, they will make it worse.
Slashdoter: WHAT???
Dr: STOP USING HEADPHONES!
Slashdoter: YOU FUCKING IGNORANT BASTARD! ARE YOU LISTENING TO ME OR NOT!?
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
really really easy. Kill stupid people. People who are too stupid to be bothered to listen to warnings, to listen to parents, listen to others.
stop trying to find a technical solution to a problem of stupidity and personal responsibility.
I remember avls on walkmen and discmen, there were two levels of it which "limited overall output volume" I'm not someone who listens at even remotely loud levels, in fact I use Shure SE310's so that I can listen at the absolute quietest intensity neccessary. And even I found these two levels to be too quiet.
Here's a far better solution. Do nothing. Let nature sort this mess out. When people start facing the consequences of their decisions they will start learnign from the consequences.
Furthermore if you can't trust your kids to listen at a proper volume then don't buy them or allow them to have the devices. Meanwhile leave me and my devices alone.
it has nothing to do with buds vs cans vs in-ear canal the problem has to do with the volume level. Even as intenisty is associated with distance^2; the difference between the two positions is relatively neglible.
these are the same morons who listen to their radios so loudly I can hear them clearly from my apt on third floor with everyones windows closed.. i have zero sympathy for them losing their hearing.
"Jazz isn't dead, it just smells funny" ~Frank Zappa
EdelFactor
Even if you can pay for things that does not mean you are not affecting others.
In places with a socialized health care system (civilized countries mostly) it is to state the obvious that the state will protect innocent bystanders of the carelessness of others as well as promote socially responsible conducts in order to maximize health care resources.
In places where the law of the jungle prevails, even if you can afford to pay for care, the health resources are still a finite resource, and by people carelessness demand (by making sick themselves) they increase the cost for everybody of having medical care.
So in as much as you would like to think you are completely free to do whatever you damn please, your actions will have social consequences no matter what but smokers are legendary for their lack of manners and their sens of entitlement, so it is hardly unsurprising to read their rants parading as defense of freedom their perceived entitlement to be socially irresponsible.
The irony to mention the free markets as the solution to social irresponsibility is very poignant today, but I will not labor the point, such attitude nowadays is frankly preposterous.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
It is that simple.
And you put the safety of others at risk as well.
I see no problem with making a law unambiguous, it is patently obvious that far too many people are completely irresponsible with their music players and mobile phones.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Block the noise with more noise, may the poor ears be damned.
The solution is to use headphones that block the noise properly when working in noisy environments.
Have you ever seen anybody working in really noisy conditions to use an ipod at full volume instead of security sound mufflers?
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Maybe this will eventually get hearing aids into mainstream technological development so they will become subject to Moore's law and non-niche market forces. Right now, they are still mediocre and overly expensive.
I can see it now... "Apple has unveiled the iEar."
The problem is also duration. Listen to a less-than-loud noise for a long time and you'll still have some damage... think about that computer fan for instance.
There are other factors like frequency and distortion but they are complicated.
We're very tolerant of hearing loss in this society. A ground-breaking study of tribal elders in the Sahel desert found that the hearing of 70-year-olds was as good as the 20 somethings. They had a low-fat diet and a very quiet soundscape.
Damn those pesky terrorists
R. Murry Schafer, composer and one of the founders of soundscape studies and the World Soundscape Project, would glibly call that 'schizophonia' -- a disconnect between what is heard and what is happening.
There are actually many reasons for listening privately in a public space:
- attempted privacy in the middle of crowds
- the druglike effect of some music on mood and body
- reinforcement of identity (like a security blanket!)
- soundtrack to life: the ability to better cope with an alienated situation by abstracting it through music.
Not only is the ability to hear damaged by headphone abuse, so is the ability to listen.
Damn those pesky terrorists
Putting aside your accidental over-generalization to boomboxes and speakers, I challenge you to defend that point. How am I a risk to myself if the volume is low enough for me to clearly hear traffic? Hell, how am I a risk to myself if the volume is blasting me deaf, so long as I still have vision? And are you arguing that deaf people should not be allowed to cross the street unescorted? I'm assuming you would reply that deaf people have been conditioned by life to be more alert and aware of their surroundings. Yet am I incapable of being alert too, without a lifelong adjustment to functioning without a sense of hearing?
You're talking as if responsibly wearing headphones is an oxymoron. There exist scenarios where listening to headphones at any volume does not impact the safety of myself or others while crossing a street. For instance, a low traffic road at night. Likewise, a more complicated crossing would require more attentiveness, but I fail to see why there is no gradient.
I reject this notion that the actions of some should result in legislating the actions of all. You assume that I am incapable of being alert while hearing music, simply because of your own experiences and biases, common though the stereotypes may be. This is like passing judgement on me if I drink while underage, because underage drinking is related to loss of life, property damage, etc. You're condemning me for being "irresponsible" by participating in an action that other people partake in irresponsibly.
Instead of insulting the responsible people by putting them on the same level as the rest, why not selectively prosecute cases that actually involve recklessness? Why not go after the instances of actions that are inherently dangerous, instead of the simplifications and generalizations thereof?
Evidently, the key to understanding recursion is to begin by understanding recursion. The rest is easy.
...used to come with a hearing protection setting that, when on, would keep all music under a certain threshold. I have never seen this on anything else since. So the tech was there once in at least one consumer product.
I don't hear well cause of my ipod
A recent NY Times article discusses links between personal music players and hearing loss.
Stop the presses! Oh shit too late. Is the NY time really hurting that bad for content that they have to print something so obvious that it actually has to insult the collective intelligence or lack there of?
Is there a technical solution to this problem? Probably but nobody woul want to buy a product that won't let them turn up the volume to the threshhold of pain. There is a logical solution but we all know how illogical humans can be.