75% of young people exposed to risk of becoming deaf in the future.

[Sendy]

All part of the dumbing down of society. Who cares what you're saying just as long as you're loud and obnoxious.

And yes, I do like to hard limit my mixes a bit to give the peaks some consistency, but if there are no dynamics left, what you've got is trash.

[trimph1]

Death Magnetic, anyone?

[masterhiggins]

heard all this same stuff when the Walkman first came out...all it takes is common sense. Here when I use the vacuum I put on hearing protection, if the smoke detector goes off the hearing protection goes on right away...going to a concert, club or what have you earplugs work well.

What the h*ll kind of vacuum cleaner you using? most modern vacuum cleaners are well below the db levels for hearing damage.

-Sam

[Tricky-Loops]

heard all this same stuff when the Walkman first came out...all it takes is common sense. Here when I use the vacuum I put on hearing protection, if the smoke detector goes off the hearing protection goes on right away...going to a concert, club or what have you earplugs work well.

What the h*ll kind of vacuum cleaner you using? most modern vacuum cleaners are well below the db levels for hearing damage.

-Sam

I never needed ear plugs for vacuuming. Maybe Hink has connected his vacuum cleaner to his guitar amp?

[hibidy]

Right ear is fading fast

[fgimian]

I have tinnitus already thanks to shitty and loud sound systems at shows my girlfriend in my late teens dragged me around to, plus the ototoxic facet of psych drugs (my tinnitus is 50% worse after psych drugs). In fact, most drugs are ototoxic. Even OTC pain killers. Look em up.

I wear earplugs for anything loud. Vacuuming. Shows. Whatever.

Doesn't protect me from other people's noise. And that's an issue I'm fully pissed about. Booming cars, shitty intentionally loud exhausts on cars and motorcycles, horns, car alarms...

Yeah, I'm all for banning fireworks and car alarms. I'm all for mandatory noise checks on cars, and for police to actually do their damned job and enforce noise ordinances on loud cars/cycles and car audio systems. As is, they actively ignore it. Worse, many of the cops ARE the bad guys with their own tough guy bikes on off hours. They're not going to cite some other biker dick because they LIKE the noise.

Society is loud indeed. It's unbearable. I hate being in any kind of urban environment. Music isn't near the only issue.

It really hurts that more people and doctors aren't educating us about medication being ototoxic. This seems to be like a dirty little secret that people only discover after they've suffered hearing loss. Consumers need to be educated way more about these risks before being given any medication!

[Compyfox]

Thanks about the Ototoxicity warning - I really didn't know that.


Regarding vacuum cleaners:

Depending on how well you trained your ears, and/or how sensitive they are, not to mention how long you have to vacuum, this can really tire and hurt your ears. Also, I realized that certain "cyclone" type vacs are louder than bag type ones. I am also considering using ear protection in the future as my current monster of a vac is really darn loud.


I even use protection while drilling holes into the wall (especially while using the percussion drill mode due to old buldings), or putting a nail into wooden panels. Actually, my staples gun (non-electric) is darn loud and I was like "WTF?!" while using it for the first time to build DIY absorber panels. I even combined foam plugs with earmuffs the last times I needed to use a jigsaw (since those things are darn loud!). Thing is, the skull bone still picks up a lot!

I'm in mid 30s now, I already have a slight(!) hearing loss to one of my ears (due to several medial treatments in my teenage years and/or being a stupid loud music listening teenager in general). Else, my ears are still as if I'd be in my young teenage years. So taking good care of your ears is(!) important, so are regular ENT check ups. The worst fear I have is going deaf. I do not fear about going blind or something, but loosing my hearing would definitely devastate me.


As of this moment, I have three types of ear protection systems at home:
- 20yo industry earmuffs (27-36dB reduction - don't know the correct value due to it's age)
- ear plugs (foam, orange/bullet type, up to 48dB reduction - sometimes really uncomfortable as it block out pretty much everything)
- ear plugs (Alpine MusicSave Pro, up to 19dB reduction with the "gold filter" - saved my hearing on New Years night)

I also have a spare "Peltor kid" set from 3M with 27dB SNR (signal noise reduction).

While I'm out of the house, I usually have neck-phones on. Even if I don't listen to music, it's working as both an ear warmer and "first impact" ear protection. Especially towards uber-loud sirens. And usually, street beggars (most kinds) leave you the hell alone.



I also sometimes try to educate the one or another parent at events if I see them with their young ones in the middle of the action, but without ear protection. I wish my parents were as educated back in the days - then again, concerts weren't as loud years ago, and I never was an avid concert goer.

Today, being uneducated about this topic in the constantly internet connected iPhone/iPad and Android Device generation is just a no-no IMO. Being "alternative" and "liberal-minded" is one thing, being irresponsible as young parent is definitely something else.

[Katelyn]

Sadly I can see this as I myself suffer tinnitus in my right ear. It's like a constant sine wave and it's really annoying. Sometimes faintly I notice it in my left ear when it's dead silent in my house... but in the last year or two I've taken care to avoid hearing fatigue and damaging my ears.

As far as I can tell I don't have any hearing loss in my right ear in terms of loudness or what range I can sense, just an annoying sine wave... so far. If I had known back when I was a teenager when I caused the damage what listening to music that loud would do I would of thought twice.

If I can, I don't wear headphones when working in my DAW, just because it wears me out faster. I'm much more aware of how much my ears can take now days. I also frequently turn down the volume when listening to music out of a habit I intentionally learned, usually as low as I can go until I can just barely hear all the elements.

[mandolarian]

I like to consider tinnitus nature's bias signal and my aural perception a vintage nagra with charming bandwidth limits. Très très précis.

[goldenanalog]

[goldenanalog]