[SET Man]

Hey!

    This was on the news...

http://newyork.cbslocal.com/video/6456756-can-you-hear-me-now/

    Actually I'm not surprised at the findings at all. With the explosion of thing like iPod and etc. I see it all the time here in NYC, people blasting their ears with those headphone around the street and in subway... Sometime I can hear their music from a few feet away in the subway car, and that with me wearing foam earplugs... no kidding!

    I think there will more problem in the future with the youngsters iPod generation. 

Take care,
Buddy 

[pardales]

A friend was telling me about mobile phone ringtones that are recorded at specified frequencies which only people from different age groups can hear. For example, there are ringtones designed so they cannot be heard by people over 40.

[Mikeinsacramento]

I'm 52 and I can't hear the hi frequency alarm tone on my alarm clock.  ipods are a problem.  On balance, though, I think culturally we're better off.  When I was young, nobody wore hearing protection at a gun range.  In college I spent two weeks in an olympic pool with a grinder removing paint from the surface of the pool.  You'd never be allowed to do that now and that's a good thing.  I had a hearing test when I was 21, and the administrator was shocked at the level of high frequency hearing loss I had.

[Rclark]

 This is one of the reasons I stopped using headphones of any type a long time ago. For me, that driver radiating directly into your earhole is not good, and it's way too easy to get carried away with volume too often.

 I prefer to have large speakers and have them match as closely or better if possible the quality of headphones. But I just won't wear them. Maybe I'll try them again but they scare me. I love my hearing. I can hear up pretty high and would love to keep that as long as possible.

[S Clark]

When I was in late teens and early 20's, I shot a lot of skeet without muffs.  I sure am paying the price now. 

[jtwrace]

This is one of the reasons I stopped using headphones of any type a long time ago. For me, that driver radiating directly into your earhole is not good, and it's way too easy to get carried away with volume too often.

 I prefer to have large speakers and have them match as closely or better if possible the quality of headphones. But I just won't wear them. I love my hearing. I can hear up pretty high and would love to keep that as long as possible.

+1

[jjc1]

About 4 years ago I discovered(actually my family made sure I knew) that my hearing wasn't up to par. Found it very hard to hear women with high pitched voices and also started to realize I wasn't hearing higher frequencies in music that I always heard before. For example, at the beginning of Blue Rondo on the Brubeck Time out album, Joe Morello hits a cow bell or something on his drum set which I could no longer hear. I went to a hearing center and was fitted with digital hearing aids, very small instruments that fit behind your ear and hardly noticeable. The technician connects them to a computer which shows the frequencies in which you are deficient and the hearing aid is adjusted accordingly.
     This was the best piece of audio equipment I have purchased in years. I can now hear higher frequencies in my music. If I forget to put them in when I listen to music, I suddenly realize that everything sounds muffled. And this is not suttle! When I put them back in, all the music opens up. It is the difference between night and day.   
 These aids are not cheap. They are about $2,600 for a pair at Costco and higher at most hearing centers. But if you want to be able to hear music which you haven't heard for years, this is the way to go. Afterall, this is our passion and the cost should be looked at as that of a new component.

[Mike Nomad]

A friend was telling me about mobile phone ringtones that are recorded at specified frequencies which only people from different age groups can hear. For example, there are ringtones designed so they cannot be heard by people over 40.

Sounds wonderful (er, sorry). I wish more of the mouth-breathing undergrads I have to put up with would use them.

[stereocilia]

Thanks for starting this thread.

It's not exactly clear to me which studies this news report is talking about.  But, good on CBS for correctly referring to the audiologist as Dr.

For further reading: Dr. Brian Fligor has published on headphones and music-induced hearing loss, and the better hearing institute (BHI) publishes on hearing loss statistics.

I wish I could remember the details, but I think it was Sergei Kochkin (of BHI) who pointed out that baby boomers appear to be getting hearing loss at a slower rate than their parents.  Of course, there are so many more baby boomers that the total number of people with hearing loss is rapidly expanding, but not at the same rate as you would expect from the population increase alone.  If I have time I'll see if I can dig up an actual reference.

So, I think some things are getting better.  Earplugs and hearing protection programs for occupational exposures were not so common in, say, the 1950s.  Machines and tools are being designed with noise levels in mind (ever wonder why new jet engines are so much bigger than the old ones?), and it seems like there is less stigma associated with wearing earplugs on the job or at the firing range than there used to be.   Much more noise-induced hearing loss comes from occupational exposure than from music.  Or, at least it used to.

As for music, have you noticed that overhead line arrays are now the norm at concerts?  That's so much better for getting a consistent sound across a large room instead of ruining the hearing of the folks who stand next to the stacks on stage.  Unfortunately, the sound is often too loud for everybody, but at least it's not going to do massive damage to a poor cluster of nearfield listeners.  Still, bring earplugs to amplified concerts.  Musician's earplugs are available from Etymotic research, even if you use them only part of the time they will help.  Remember it's loudness plus time, not just loudness that harms you.

As for iPods, the sound-isolating phones are better than earbuds because the listener tends not to turn up the volume too loud to get above the ambient noise floor.  For a subway commuter that noise floor can be pretty high.  Also, the myth that if mom can hear their teen's music at all then it must be too loud is just that: a myth.  In fact, mom, you actually can hear somebody else's music even when they are listening at safe levels depending on how much the headphones leak.

If your interested in more iPod vs. ears info I Google-found this one: http://news.healingwell.com/index.php?p=news1&id=535639