Has listening to music with headphones affected your hearing?

[bob_32_116]

Rant alert:

I've complained a number of times to the staff at my gym about their choice of background music. Occasionally it's adult-oriented rock radio stations, which is listenable. More often it's teen-oriented pop stations... and I've banged on about current pop music elsewhere on this board so i won't do so here, suffice to say I can barely tolerate it. Every so often they seem to have one of those pre-recorded workout soundtracks with "music" that's basically thump, thump, thump, with lots of sound loops and that ghastly effect of a repeated phrase getting higher and higher in pitch. Fuck I'd like to kill the person who invented that motif.

Anyway, I complained that the music was so awful that it was disturbing my concentration on my workout, and that surely I couldn't be the only one. The guy's response? "You could wear headphones and listen to your own music like many others do."

I held my tongue for fear of losing my temper and saying something I would later regret. What I should have said, had I thought of it, was "If all those other patrons are listening to their own music and drowning out what's on the PA, then they won't mind if you change the station."

[Frankk]

I like loud music, especially when listening to certain types of music. I love to feel the bass in my bowels (if listening on speakers) or to be swept away by total immersion (if listening on headphones).

However, I *never* listen as loud as any concert I've been to in the past ten years. For some unfathomable reason, concert sound has been pumped up to the level of "pain" and a bit beyond. I have damaged my hearing, with permanent tinnitus, by attending a few too many concerts (that's why I don't anymore).

At home, listening at wall-shaking volumes, THAT has never given me tinnitus.

How do you know it was specifically the loud concerts what caused you tinnitus? Isn´t tinnitus a permanent condition?

[Frankk]

Headphones were part of my discovery of music back then. Though I must say that I rarely use the two pairs I have (one in each pad)


However, I use as least as possible those earbuds , because they feel uncomfy, and I don't like much the quality that comes out of them

Over-the-head and over-the-ear headphones have a much better sound than in-ear headphones. However, I prefer in-ear headphones because my ears don't get warm. Besides, with in-ear headphones you can get more isolated from surrounding noise and, as a consequence of that, you can listen to music at a lower volume.

[Gruno]

I've been lucky to have no obvious problems with my hearing. I have always taken precautions when attending live shows. I wear earplugs or other ear protection at nearly every live event I attend. In the 80s & 90s I wore earplugs to most concerts. I was often given odd looks at some metal shows, but I wonder how those people are doing with their hearing these days…

I listen to music all day with the work that I do. I use my studio monitors for those. The volume is not at earth-shattering levels, as the system I have is crisp & clean, so I don't need the studio walls to rumble. At night, as I am working on more music, I always listen with some good headphones. With my work, I need to listen and locate as many differences within the music, and a good pair of headphones does the trick just fine. Again, I do not put the volume too loud. As for earbuds, I use them with my iPod. Usually it is when I am traveling or out and about, but I have no problem using them and don't understand why they get a bad review.

If you use headphones of any type, especially while you work, you should not use them for hours upon hours. Your ears need time to relax.

[simon moon]

Seems to me that if the db as measured at your ears is the same, whether from headphones, speakers, or live performance, it wouldn't matter.

120 db as perceived at your ears from headphones or speakers, is still 120 db.

[Fracktured]

What?

Cue Garret Morris for the hearing impaired!

[GuitarGeek]

Rant alert:

I've complained a number of times to the staff at my gym about their choice of background music. Occasionally it's adult-oriented rock radio stations, which is listenable. More often it's teen-oriented pop stations... and I've banged on about current pop music elsewhere on this board so i won't do so here, suffice to say I can barely tolerate it. Every so often they seem to have one of those pre-recorded workout soundtracks with "music" that's basically thump, thump, thump, with lots of sound loops and that ghastly effect of a repeated phrase getting higher and higher in pitch. Fuck I'd like to kill the person who invented that motif.

They usually have a piped in music service, so they have no choice of what music to play. I have that issue at my current place of employment. I think they use Muzak, and some of the music is pretty good, some of it not bad, some of very questionable, and some of it downright obnoxious. One thing that drive sme up the wall is they play the inferior 10,000 Maniacs cover of More Than This. OK, I realize Roxy Music were never very big Stateside, but if you're going to play that song you should play the Roxy version. I've also lately started loathing Boys Of Summer, because it gets played a lot.

Thankfully, my managers let me wear headphones at work, so I bring my mp3 player, and crank some Tangerine Dream, Black Sabbath, Judas Priest, Steve Hillage, or whatever else I feel like listening to that shift. I keep it turned down low enough that I can hear anyone who talks to me, but mostly it does a nice job of making my current work situation more bareable.

[GuitarGeek]

Me too. Maybe it's the geometry of my ears or something, but I've never heard an earbud whose sound rose above the quality of utter shite.

The ones that came with my Sansa mp3 player are by far the best I've heard. Earbuds I've heard before these ones had no bottom end, and also had a much too short of cable. You always ended up having to buy a new pair of headphones to go with it. That's not the problem with the Sansa earbuds. They've got plenty of bottom end, the cable is more than long enough to reach down to my pants pocket (where I usually keep my player), and when I had to replace them, I was able to get a new pair for only around 12 bucks from the Amazon Marketplace.

The problem I have wiht earbuds, is they keep falling out of my ears, and has been mentioned, they're not very comfy. But my Sony headphones I have are in my opinion to big and clunky to wear when I'm outside (though they're not as awkward as those big ass headphones we had back in the 70's, remember those?).

[prglvr]

I've been lucky to have no obvious problems with my hearing. I have always taken precautions when attending live shows. I wear earplugs or other ear protection at nearly every live event I attend. In the 80s & 90s I wore earplugs to most concerts. I was often given odd looks at some metal shows, but I wonder how those people are doing with their hearing these days…

I also use some type of protection when I attend concerts..I also have had some funny looks from people. A couple of guys standing in back of me at a Pearl Jam concert kidded me good naturedly about my "expensive" hearing protection (some wads of cotton) I took them out and offered to share and they backed off a bit, but it was all in fun. .I do play my music through my IPod loud at times but not excrutiatingly so and not for long periods of time. Had my hearing checked over last summer expecting some loss but it was actually pretty good...still able to hear the higher frequencies pretty well.