EU Recommends Noise Limits On MP3 Players

A story at the BBC notes increasing pressure from the European Commission to set standards that would limit the maximum volume on portable MP3 players. Their reasoning is that it would protect users from damaging their hearing after listening to loud music for extended periods. Quoting: "This follows a report last year warning that up to 10m people in the EU face permanent hearing loss from listening to loud music for prolonged periods. EU experts want the default maximum setting to be 85 decibels, according to BBC One's Politics Show. Users would be able to override this setting to reach a top limit of 100 decibels. ... Some personal players examined in testing facilities have been found to reach 120 decibels, the equivalent of a jet taking off, and no safety default level currently applies, although manufacturers are obliged to print information about risks in the instruction manuals. Modern personal players are seen as more dangerous than stationary players or old-fashioned cassette or disk players because they can store hours of music and are often listened to while in traffic with the volume very high to drown out outside noise."

Comments

Wrong approach entirely

[BadAnalogyGuy]

A technical problem requires a technical solution.

Instead of forcing media player manufacturers to implement a volume limiter, just force them to include a jamming frequency and allow third parties to sell jammers. When a person feels that someone's music is intruding on their personal space (in a bus, on a train, or anywhere that people are in close contact), a single button press could send a piercing squeal right through whatever audio the earbud guy had playing.

This has two benefits. First, if there are multiple people around and it is difficult to determine who is listening loudly, this gets all of them in one shot. Second, if a person's earbuds are so loud that the sound is invading someone else's personal space, the brief tone should be enough to put their eardrums out permanently.

Re:Wrong approach entirely

[Yvan256]

The issue here is not the ambient noise produced by the earphones, but the damage to the listener.

You're not making any sense!

Imagine you're a car, and you want to put the wrong kind of gas in your tank.

That's a much better explanation, thanks!

What next?

[Vinegar Joe]

EU regs on the maximum roughness of toilet paper?

Spam

[nten]

that sounds strangely like spam I've seen

Re:But how to do that?

[John Hasler]

> While all our governments are in a nanny-state frame of mind...
> ...
> ...[the bands] obviously consider it perfectly OK for them to obliterate
> the hearing of customers frequenting the place.

Customers who were abducted from the streets outside, dragged into the club, and chained down so that they couldn't escape.

> ...
> ...I hold many of these crappy bands to blame.

Because you couldn't possibly be responsible for your own behavior.