Hearing Damage PSA

No idea this was a thing, that’s pretty interesting. I wish I could find more info on what symptoms or what it sounds like to experience it, as now I wonder if that’s happening when I use some of my iems (but honestly that feels more like a pressure issue but it does cause some sort of ringing in response to sound and pressure but only in one ear)

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Hello,
I think a little differently.
Apart from the fact that noise at construction sites, industry and other things where the daily noise affects and can really damage the ear.
There is also the question of whether bad audio equipment can damage our hearing.
Let’s take a look back at the old TVs where a good loudspeaker was still installed and also reasonable.
In contrast to today, where only the cheapest of the cheap is built in, plus all the plastic workmanship, I would say that this is clearly more damaging over longer periods of listening.
This applies to the whole industry, which builds absolute rubbish into things, no matter whether it’s headphones, plastic boxes or smart TVs, car hifi, smartphones, tablets.

Of course I personally am allergic to such kind of frequencies, I always was, even when I was younger and heard better.
But it is exactly this kind of frequencies that damage our ears every day.
And I think that is the main reason why more and more young people at the age of 25-30 hear much worse than people who were also 25-30 years old 20-30 years ago.
And the tendency is increasing.
In my opinion, a badly tuned driver built into plastic creates annoying frequencies on the ears that are not good.
I experience that again and again.
If you take headphones that are better made, the difference is really huge.
The same with loudspeakers, or if you run the sound from the TV through an amplifier, it immediately sounds more relaxed on the ears and is also much more comfortable.

Unfortunately, the whole thing is very much supported by the industry, which is a real shame, and is not healthy in the long term, not even from a health point of view.
And I think I speak for everyone who has a clean audio system, regardless of the budget that was invested, that everyone feels that way when he listens to his audio system and later hears the same thing in the car, TV or bad headphones.
I think that the industry should not bring something like this onto the market, especially for children who can still hear relatively better than us adults.
It would be better if the industry improved this or left out the audio chain altogether if they think they have to save money.
I would prefer that.

I am not quite 40 years old and have already had 10 hearing loss episodes in 10 years which were all too much.I have had a small incurable tinitus in my right ear for 5 years.Mainly due to the job I had,and of course stress.
I have always asked myself why, why, why me?
Why is this happening to me? I have certainly worked on my work life balance.
It got a little better, but it really got better after I realised that certain sounds can also annoy me and I changed my mind.
One day I fell asleep on the couch in the living room and woke up in front of the TV with a startle.later I thought why?and just for fun I let the TV run over the stereo and it got much better.
Nothing was annoying in the highs anymore, nothing sounded harsh or shrill or annoying.
That led to another clear improvement.
My assumption was correct, that the ear gets tired by such sounds and causes such things, although it is not stress, but it is perceived as such by the body, and if you imagine that you listen to it every day, especially after a hard day at work that was loud or even stressful. The annoying colleague who makes noise all the time.Then you want to relax,you can’t do that if the TV or the radio sounds really “crappy”.I would call it reverse stress.What should bring us down at the end of the day can’t take place under such circumstances.
These are personal experiences I have had.I wish I had done it earlier.
I kept putting it off until the day I suddenly got the little tinitus.
I still hear well and that will certainly change as I get older.
But I still hear noises that my wife doesn’t hear, like the other day when the heating whistled in a disgusting way. I hear that again or noises from outside with the window closed and so on.
For me, these are always signs that my ear has recovered and is functioning in a way, but I also react more sensitively to it.
When the TV is on in the next room at work and it sounds really loud, I unconsciously start to get annoyed and tell people to turn it down. And when you enter the room where the TV is, it can be really loud and your colleagues are sitting in front of it.

As a good tip I can only say turn down the treble on your TV’s, also on your smartphone, and in the car, avoid excessive volume if you don’t want to do that.
For 500-600$ you can get a good audio system that will work for 5-10 years, ideally if the speakers are made of wood.
For headphones avoid plastic if possible.For headset there are no bad solutions for the same price.
Sure, in the long run you will hear worse, but this is an effective way of delaying the whole thing in the long run.
That is the best protection as long as it is not wanted or imposed by the industry.
Of course you can effectively help it with insulation but that is not wanted by the industry for cost reasons.to open the plastic waste yourself would be an option but this does not always have a positive effect also because the sound body was designed differently.that is why this is always a huge issue in loudspeaker construction.and the other thing is that the plastic waste has been built in such a way that you often can’t put it back together again.

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You get the pressure issue too? I tried iems but never could get past it. I feel pressure where it feels a little like congestion or your ears wanting to pop with altitude change. I feel like im trying to pop my ears even a while after listening and maybe a placebo but there seems to be more wax.

From our discussion the other night this is what the bf2/rnhp combo was making me feel like. That wall of sound had more pressure than i was used to but volume wise i dont think i was much louder.

Yeah only with iems, I also have problems clearing my ears when diving as well, so typically iems can become not an option for me if I have sinus issues or I can’t properly regulate pressure with iems. It’s just that when that issue happens, the hearing in my ears will go in and out like it’s being sealed off and opened repeatedly, and I almost get a slight ringing during music playing, even at lower levels. This isn’t tinnitus but only happens when I have those pressure issues

That can come down to more information that you aren’t used to, like better dynamics, more resolution, better time domain performance, more than pressure if you are using headphones and experiencing that, given your hearing is doing fine

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quite for a decade. i worked security for concerts for 6 years out of high school. still have tinnitus some, but not nearly as bad. years and years of not loud noise will fix it over time.

edit: and i am no medical expert, but fixing the problem by adding more of the problem, is not the solution. overwhelming your brain and ears with the signal its sick of hearing works short term because the ears go numb and the brain goes numb to those signals. not sure how much long term benefit it would have. i have tried a lot of different things. and playing high pitch tones works, but never more then short term. and for me it gets 10x worse when the effects where off. YMMV

Is there such a thing a “permanent intermittent” tinnitus? Maybe it’s just a brain focus thing, but mine seems like it can come on at almost any time in my daily life. No real pattern to how long it persists when it does either. I honestly never really notice it go away when I’m experiencing it but I very distinctly perceive going from normal to ringing when it starts.

my tinnitus comes and goes. so i would say yes. a background noise in the frequencies you have problems with can start it off IMO. once again, no medical expert. just going off of my own experiences with it.

Interesting. Headphones havent done it to me unless i was sick already then any pressure erks me. The hd6xx was the first headphone i could wear with a sinus infection as it didnt pound away. Though now i do feel like i feel the drivers working and there is more meat there. This may also be from having something that is driving them correctly though too.

I’d say mine also comes and goes, but I don’t know if it is a physical thing or just where my mental focus is.

Sorry for delayed response. I suspect that info is buried deep in audiologist trade journals, haven’t come across anything on that myself other than the Wikipedia entry. Came across stapedius from a Tyll Herstens guest appearance on Home Theater Geeks, a one-time YouTube channel. Delay is because I just spent the past two days listening to all 13 of his hour-long guest appearances there trying to locate the reference. And of course it was the last one I tried that contained that discussion, starting at 42:08 for 4 minutes. Chock full of detailed info. Some highlights: sounds like a rushing noise and preferentially blocks bass frequencies, tapering off down to 2 kHz. He says it kicks in around 75 dB; Wikipedia says around 70 to 100 dB.

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I have had tinnitus most of my life, it is sometimes annoying, usually not. But particularly if it is very quiet of course I can hear it. Despite that I had my hearing tested years back and it was in the 99th percentile. Not sure if it is still that good but I always try to take it easy with the headphones.

I read once that if you enjoy what you’re listening to it is less damaging to your hearing. I don’t know if that is crazy internet talk or what but the logic was that bad sound caused stress hormones to be released which exacerbated the hearing damage. Anyway, because of that a rule I follow is that if I am enjoying the music I listen at normal volumes, but as soon as I start to feel bored with it I start turning it down. If I get to the point where I feel like I can’t find anything I want to listen to I just turn it off.

Had a minor cold and congestion the last week which has made my tinnitus worse no doubt. Might try these out and see how they do for a few days. Can’t hurt (hopefully :man_shrugging:) to try.

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