Interesting article about one's ability to hear/listen
- Thread starter RichDavis
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How I measure it is I turn up my system until I sense some pain and then I take it down a notch and that's where I set my maximum listening level. I'm not a spring chicken and having played music for over 40+ years in a variety of situations, my hearing is very sensitive to certain frequencies at certain levels. it happens to all of us. But I can't make a generalization about dB levels as to what's safe for everyone. Some people are younger with not enough sense to keep their music down to sensible levels. Some are a little more careful about it.
Here's one article that discusses dB ratings from a duration point of view, I'm sure there are other sources for similar information that might be slightly different, but everything I've read is to keep music listening over long periods of time down below 95dB. Yeah, you might be able to handle 120dB for about a minute, but not an hour or two. 120dB is LOUD. 120dB is too loud for me. That's why I stopped going to concerts and if I do, I have to make sure they have a good PA system that doesn't have lots of high frequency distortion, but 120dB is not good for long durations of time. But I generally go to concerts where they don't crank the music up that loud. Since we can get dB on our smartphones, we can at least do a quick check to see what we are being subjected to.
http://www.neworleansmusiciansclinic.org/medical-resources/hearing/hearing-loss-decibel-levels/
I couldn't agree more. Listening at those levels on a daily basis is just asking for trouble. Have to watch those ear buds as well.
Rob
I rarely listen with ear buds and I keep the volume down where it's comfortable. Yeah, I can't stand when cars pass you by and they have the big sub woofers blasting. it's just annoying to be subjected to and I don't have control all of the time.
I use ear protection for rock concerts. Etymotic makes some good plugs. Oh and I drink at those concerts. LOL!
Gary, I agree. I would never base a purchase decision regarding audio, or other matters, when I am mentally impaired.
The "religious / moral / behavioral tone" of the thread is the reason I am responding to the OP.
I agree with Mep. Another meaningless topic to fight about unless you and the OP are saying that forum posts regarding sonic / technical judgements are based on "being under the influence". If you have examples of this on the WBF, please provide proof.
It's almost like certain people are posting to espouse personal beliefs to justify their personal "whatever values" and ignore the basic fact that with music, art, or any other subjective experiences, there is no universal truth.
GG
Wearing metallic objects on the body can affect listening as well.....
I'm glad I had LASIK done.
I'm glad I had LASIK done.
You posted this article as fact didn't you? You failed to critically assess its shortcomings. That's what science is about.
C'mon. There is zip, nada, zero evidence presented in this publication to support their contention about long term damage. Science is about obtaining data to prove (or disprove) a hypothesis. There is none in this publication. What you want to do with the data is your business. But don't go saying there is evidence of long term damage here.
That's one way to determine appropriate volume. I prefer listening to various volume settings (my preamp allows for 0.7db steps) and determine a level where I can hear the most clarity and dimensionality that the particular selection has to offer.
Needless to say, I try to avoid pain within the context of volume settings or other matters in my personal life.
But then again, that's just me.
You will have hearing loss at much lower volumes before any pain sets in.
I haven't gone to rock concerts since the mid/late 1970's when I was in my early twenties. I didn't like getting my ears overloaded and regret going to the four I attended. I still recall who I saw. Elton John, Moody Blues, Sha Na Na and The Eagles.
I know acoustic musicians who wear the Etymotic ear protection when they rehearse. Playing the piccolo and flute will do you in without ear protection.
Based on the charts about dB levels, listening at 95dB for longer than short periods of time without ear protection is what causes hearing damage. That's actually when I start getting pain is a little louder than that. But when I say 95dB, that's peak and only for short bursts in the music since music is dynamic. But most of the time, it's considerably much lower than 95dB, it's more like 80-85dB and they indicated that that is just fine even for long periods of time without causing hearing damage. At least that's what I stick to when I have control over the volume knob. If I listened to music where it was 95dB at the lower dynamics and then had peaks in the 100dB range, that's far beyond my threshold for feeling some degree of pain. Obviously, I could probably handle that for a couple of minutes, but extended periods, nope, I would need hearing protection or expect to have ringing in my ears, Tinnitus, etc.
Yeah, I know flute can get ya when you least expect it. Any note played loud enough will, but there seems to be certain notes (at least this is what i've experienced) that seem to be a little more effective than others. Same thing with certain low frequencies.
What's interesting is if we keep the dB levels down below 95dB, most efficient speakers would only be running on 1 to 5 watts of power, therefore what do we need huge power amps? Am I talking myself into a tube power amp now? LOL.
Sounds like you have it all figured out. Just turn it up until it hurts and then take it down a notch. Looks like you need to share you wisdom with the young people "with not enough sense to keep their music down to sensible levels."
Are you serious or is this a joke?
Just look at human auditory threshhold/sensitivity curves and you will see that the threshhold at 20Hz is about 70dB higher than at 500Hz and 90dB higher than at 3KHz.
Here's the process I used. yes, I first got my speakers to play a variety of music and got the louder content, (since some of the content has different levels of dynamics and is mastered differently) where I sensed my ears experiencing a subtle amount of pain, then I took it down to where it was at the loudest level without pain. I then MEASURED the dB and it turned out that the peak was at 95dB, but depending on the content, it varies around 80dB and some of it a little higher, some a little lower depending on the content. Now, if you look at the dB levels in various charts, they suggest 80dB continuous is not a problem for 8 hours of listening without ear protection, obviously when it gets to 95 dB of continuous content one can't listen to sounds for long periods of time. I listen to my speakers up to 8 hours and sometimes a little more or less depending on my day, so I am just being careful as to what listening levels I'm experiencing and it just so happened to fall in line with what the various charts/sites recommend. I don't know how else to figure out the volume levels of my system other than taking measurements and listening to see at what point causes ear fatigue/damage or any subtle amounts of pain. Again, this is the maximum level that I will turn my system up to, but I will turn it down further depending obviously on my mood and the content I'm listening to, but I have to figure out a maximum level that doesn't product any pain, and is pleasant to listen to over long periods of time and also falls within the suggestion dB levels by various sites that discuss how to prevent ear damage.
The frequency response curves others are suggesting, i don't really have much control over that since I just have basically volume controls which is what i am connecting with dB levels. My speakers in my office are small bookshelf's so I'm not dealing with low frequencies below 50 Hz. My next pair of speakers I hope to get a little lower bass, but I'm still dealing with speakers that might go down a little lower to maybe the 40+Hz range.
Do you have a better method of doing this? If so, I'm all ears (no pun intended). And please don't take excerpts of my explanation to poke fun. I explained the dB levels in addition to the snippet you mentioned.
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