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

Sony Noise Canceling Kicks Ass

[knapper_tech]

The older players used to have some weak/annoying DRM, but the newer ones give you the freedom you want when uploading tracks. I had a little 2GB older model that had an unbelievable battery life of like 50hrs.

One day I was walking by train tracks as a train was approaching. Just as I pressed play (~2s delay to start up on that model) the train's horn starts up. BWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah..... That's the correctly capitalized onomatopoeia for a train against noise canceling earbuds. They're awesome.