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?"

Comments

Turn down the volume

[mbone]

s there a technical solution to the potential danger ?

Yes - very technical. Turn down the volume.

Re:Turn down the volume

[hedwards]

This is very old news, a large part of it is indeed poorly fitting earbuds and ones that don't block all the noise. None of the ones shipped by most companies are worth using, but the iPod ones are pretty bad and people seem to resist paying for a decent pair.

Yes, $50-100 is a fair amount of money, but what exactly is the monetary value of not losing ones hearing prematurely? Plus my shure e2c do a pretty good job of giving me a quality listening experience in most places.

And if that's too much money, one can always just pay for a cheaper set and deal with the over the head variety.

Re:Turn down the volume

[Anonymous Coward]

This is very old news

Exactly. I mean, WTF...

"This just in: Putting loud-speakers inside your ear and listening to music in too high volume for extended periods of time has been linked to hearing loss!"

Re:Turn down the volume

[Chris Pimlott]

But you wouldn't have to turn the volume up so loud to drown out road noise if your headphones did a better job of blocking out noise in the first place. That's the point.

Re:Turn down the volume

[Yvan256]

Putting loud-speakers inside your ear and listening to music in too high volume for extended periods of time has been linked to hearing loss

<loud>WHAT?</loud>

Re:Turn down the volume

[Tetsujin]

Putting loud-speakers inside your ear and listening to music in too high volume for extended periods of time has been linked to hearing loss

<loud>WHAT?</loud>

SOMETHING ABOUT PUTTING CLOUD SNEAKERS INSIDE YOUR BEER I THINK!

Re:Turn down the volume

[pazu]

Maybe the "technical solution" is to include hearing tests in every medical checkup, since they only take a couple minutes.

Too bad most doctors are too biased or ignorant enough to stop listening to you as soon as their hear the word "iPod".

I own an iPhone and a pair of Etymotic HF2 earphones. These are in-ear, noise isolating earphones, and I use them exactly because I don't want to turn my volume too high. Most of the time, I hear to music just one click above silence (I mean, turn the volume to zero, than press up just once), two if I'm in a very noise environment, like walking in the streets.

I seriously doubt hearing music at these levels could cause any long term hearing loss, but I've noticed my ears started ringing a few months ago -- maybe it's always been there, I don't know, but I only noticed recently.

I've visited an ENT recently and he completely dismissed everything I've said as soon as he heard I had a music player. I mentioned the low volume, the noise isolating earphones, but he just ignored me. He "prescribed" me to stop using earphones, period.

So, yes, include hearing tests in every medical checkup, but please educate doctors about modern equipment and their actual effect on hearing.

Re:Turn down the volume

[hairyfeet]

I'm sorry if I came off a little pissy,but I'm so damned sick of these nanny state lovers trying to tell us how to live our damned lives! If I want a cigarette,a beer,or a joint,or if I want to blow my damned ears off listening to AC/DC,what right does the damned state have to tell me what to do with my own body? I don't expect the nanny state to buy me hearing aids if I blow my ears off,and if I'm doing something that could endanger others like a DUI then please slap me for being stupid(point of fact:I don't drink or smoke weed,but that ain't the damned state's business).

But if I want to set in the comfort of my own home or take a leisurely stroll while obeying the traffic laws what business is it of some busybody to tell me what volume to listen to Rammstein at? Did they pay for my MP3 player? No? Then please MYOB and let me enjoy my music. We have seen it happen again and again: somebody comes out with a "duh" study(smoking is bad for you! Loud music hurts your ears!) and the next thing you know politicians are tripping over themselves to ban it.

You see,I remember a time when we had smokers bars and nonsmokers bars. It was nice,everyone who worked at the smokers bars were (surprise!) smokers,and those who wanted a nonsmoking environment went to one of the multitude of bars where smoking wasn't allowed. You see,that is how a free market works. If there is a demand someone will fill it. So there were nonsomking clubs and smoking clubs because both could fill a demand. But then the busybodies decided they liked OUR clubs better. So instead of just putting up with it(like we did when we went to THEIR clubs) they went "Cough Cough. You shouldn't be able to smoke in public" so there went our clubs.

But,silly old me,I still believe in two little words called "personal responsibility". If I go into a club that is smoky I'm not retarded,I KNOW I'm going to breathe others smoke! I know,it's amazing but true! And if I turn my music up too loud or see AC/DC in concert then I KNOW that I'm risking my hearing. But too many busybodies have decided that THEY know how WE should live and are going to make DAMNED sure that we can't hurt ourselves,because like little children we need nanny government to hold our hands to protect us from ourselves. How about just like cigarettes you put a warning on them and then leave us alone? Does anyone believe that they will do something as simple and sensible as this? Nope,me neither.

And I apologize for the length. I'm just tired of being treated like I'm 4 or too stupid to understand risks. We are all given brains on the day of our birth. If some choose not to use theirs I don't want the entire world padded just to make it safer for morons.

Re:Turn down the volume

[EdelFactor19]

I have a better idea, don't contact your senator and make your problems ours. Leave the party

screw you people and your legislation of mp3 volumes. IF YOU DONT LIKE IT GO SOMEWHERE ELSE. TURN DOWN THE VOLUME, FILE A NOISE COMPLAINT.

if you are going to a party and are concerned with your hearing and volume, bring your own god damn ear plugs. Why should it be my problem? your health is your job. I bring ear plugs to every concert I go to; i don't expect someone else to do it for me.

I dont want to hear it either but dont tell me how to fix a problem that doesnt exist.

Your friend took a job with high risks and sold his health for money. go cry to your mom about it.

What?

[cayenne8]

What?

The problem is gradual increase in volume

[JustKidding]

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.

Re:Noise Canceling Headphones

[AioKits]

All headphones are noise canceling if you listen to them long enough at max volume.

Bone conduction anyone?

[DaveV1.0]

Does bone conduction cause the same problem? If not, Vibe Body Sound Headphones may be an answer.

Here is the simple solution

[Aging_Newbie]

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.

Re:Should be: Nothing to see here, move along

[dkleinsc]

High volumes for extended times cause hearing loss. News at 11.

But news at 11 is 1 louder than news at 10.