Experts: Headphones Worsen Hearing Loss

[nakedtoes 0]

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/E/EAR...EMPLATE=DEFAULT

 

[neutralzz 0]

probably headphones would be more damaging than speakers.. no medical evidence on this, but if you compair a regular speaker set-up, the speakers are facing you perpendicular, unlike headphones which drives straight into your ear for the super-aural design (like grados, etc)

 

in this way, energy is more diffused, your ear actually collects the sound, if anyone is familiar with superposition.. blahblahblah sound waves in phase and out of phase and blahblahblah converging to give positional sweet spots..

 

acoustics of the room affects the wave super-imposing on each other, and generally inclusive of reflections etc one gets larger sonic stage..

 

this is compared to.. earphones or headphones.. circumaural and superaural designs.. i would bet the circumaurals like beyer dt880s or the senns650 would have a much wider soundstage as compared to grados.. (this is my hypothesis, i've yet to heard the senns :S no $$)

 

grado design is supra aural into the ear channel, thus i guess that was the reason why i found it a little discomforting.. use of earpads from the senns like suggested, helps to convert the earphone to a more circumferal nature.. thus improving the sound, and lessens the direct energy input..

 

but probably being coupled differently, i guess grados have an edge over the other headphones.. especially in the "thump" or the boom aspect on lower frequencies..

[Kube 0]

Don't use speakers...but most of the time...I just stick to one volume level, perferrably pretty low. As long as I don't have to bump it higher afterawhile, I know my hearing's still there...

[neutralzz 0]

i generally stick to a pretty fixed volume of listening.. but occasionally for the kick of it i would just up the volume a little for much fuller dynamics.. might be a bad habit tho

[yotiao 0]

I now have infection in my right ear (otitis media), can i still listen to headphones? feeling dizzy...

[lypk 0]

Haiz.. sometimes i hear 'pops' in my right ear whenever someone shouts too loud or something similar... don't think its becuz of headphones though.. might be infection..

 

Anyway, i always tend not to believe so called 'findings' by scientists, cuz they always go through the accelaration method of testing and experimenting.. which of course would lead to worse results.. think about it... scientists have said that we'll die from eating too much rice.. (and they test that by stuffing rice into lab mice i believe, for every meal.. that's what they call researching.. ") but have you seen anyone actually pass away for that reason b4? Nope right? So dont believe truely on what's been said..

 

I think the thing we should be more worried about are the radiation from talking too much on handphones..

[Kube 0]

Well...what I do know is that the ear eventually get's used to the higher volumes, and less sensitive to the lower levels. For example, some times, I mistakenly up my volume a notch and listen for a day...the next day, I notice that the previous level is too soft. What I try to do is just let my ears get used to the softer levels.

[sayhitojason 0]

Yeah, I have the same experience with Kube as well. Our ears naturally get use to the volume. I used to contibuously turn up the volume during extended listening sessions. Then when I take a short break and continue, I find the volume to be very loud!

 

For the last couple of months, I have experienced slight ringing in my ears. So nowadays, I listen to low volumes late at night/early in the morning.

 

One gauge that I use to make sure the volume is not too loud is that I can still hear the noises around me.

 

Enjoy the music, but take care of your health too.