Or more accurately reworded (but less exciting) loud music is bad for your hearing. Many people choose earbuds that are not isolating intentionally because they want to be aware of their surroundings and thus don't increase the volume to compensate.
Many people choose earbuds that are not isolating intentionally because they want to be aware of their surroundings and thus don't increase the volume to compensate.
That might be true, but I'd bet good money most people chose non-isolating earbuds because they don't know any better (or know of the existence of isolating earbuds).
I choose non-isolating because I can't stand the sound of my own heartbeat and my breath resonating through my sinuses. The isolation also just tends to make me feel paranoid about my surroundings. It's just completely unnatural to feel isolated that way.
It's probably in part a consequence of not growing up using headphones/earphones when walking or doing other things outside. But I just can't get used to being cut off from what's going on around me even absent isolating earphones.
I don't really feel comfortable walking in the woods. I basically can't imagine walking in a city with earphones in.
Additionally, I think the marketing around active noise cancelling has been so good that most people have no clue a good pair of in-ear earbuds can do just as well (without causing the weird artifacting that active cancelling can) passively.
Properly fitted in-ear monitors do better, because they can block unpredictable sound sources. Active noise cancellation does a very good job of reducing the constant hum of aircraft engines, but very little to block the sound of a crying baby.
For the open office, my Sony XM3s are extremely easy to take on and off in an instant - and offer extremely good cancellation, and OK sound quality for programming.
My Audio Technica ATH-IM02 earbuds in comparison require very careful positioning, even though it offers far superior quality in a quiet environment.
I use the "palm on the side" feature a lot. It reduces the music volume and turns up the ambient noise. If I'm not mistaken, it also increases the volume of voices so you can hear conversations well.
What kind of earbuds do you mean? Those incredibly expensive custom molded ones? I have some foam tipped earbuds (Tinaudio T2) and the isolation seems pretty good compared to other earbuds I have previously owned but nowhere near the 1000XM3 active noise canceling.
Silicone tips work much better than foam tips for me. I currently use Shure SE215s and the passive noise blocking when using silicone tips seems similar to (but not better than) the old quietcomforts I've used.
Before using custom molded IEMs I used Etymotics with foam tips, which had much thicker foam than what I see on the Tinaudio product page. The isolation with foam is just as good, if properly inserted (same technique as with foam earplugs: roll to compress, insert deeply, and hold in place until fully expanded). But after only a few insertions the foam starts to lose its resiliency and sound-blocking effectiveness.
Custom IEMs can isolate noise almost as well as fully inserted foam earplugs, and they take only a second to insert or remove. The convenience and sound-blocking consistency are why I prefer them to "universal" tipped IEMs.
Cheapo shure se215 with triple flange or foam tips and you're golden. I have them on all day and I even manage to sleep with them (when I accidentally fall asleep while listening to a podcast)
There's so much noise on the street that I feel more comfortable with IEMs than open earphones. I don't need to be deafened by a horn blast or a bus releasing its air brakes next to me.
A choose not to because the lifetime of expensive "high quality" earbuds is about the same as a $2 pair from the supermarket, if I'm going to pay for high end ones I want something that will last more than a few months and I've been burned a couple of times. The midrange ($30-$40) sony ones are the only brand I've had that can last a year.
hm, most "high quality" earbuds nowadays come with detachable cables and i have 3 200$+ earbuds with mmcx. 2 chi-fi and 1 sony, all of them work for 3-5 years of active use. Yes mmcx chords could break from time to time, but top notch chords cost like 5-10$ on aliexpress nowadays. anyway i'm probably a little bit biased here, because after you get several dissent pairs you start to think what kind of music you what to play today and what kind of headphones signature you should use for this music, because to be honest there is a huge difference. And yeah i was exactly like you, buying the cheapest possible earbuds 5 years ago and i had like 10+ of thous cheap sony/philips/sennheisers. They all break in a couple of mounts-year. Usually it is a chord or just some driver problems.
I'm a KZ fan. Most models have detachable cables with several replacement options, including Bluetooth. My current main is ZS6, very neutral, but the angular metal body can be quite uncomfortable. Before that I had ZST which was way more comfortable and had more bass, although the instrument separation wasn't as good. Still the best $20 I've ever spent on music.
heh, i'm not really a headphone guru o something, just listened 8-10 decent iem in my life and nothing from 1k+ price range) All i know is that if you never had something more expensive then 10$ then pretty much any chi fi of 50-100$ will sound good. I have LZ-a4, BGVP - DM6 and pinnacle p1 (not mine, but can use them). All of them have their good and bad sides and it really depends on the dac you are going to use. Because LZ-a4 sound terrific on fiio q1mk2(the cheapest dac i have) with some electronic music. BGVP - DM6 are the best on LG-v30 and have the best clarity overall (The Weeknd songs sound with much greater complexity and sometimes i can feel that there is a way to even separate the Daft Punk part out of Starboy. Don't know if i like it, but it is definitely a completely new experience). And Pinnacle sound noticeably better on any old rock (Fleetwood mac) or something like Norah Jones, Ellioth Smith when you don't want clarity because the record is imperfect and you actually want to here the "velvet" sound.
I had couple KZ back in 2016-17 and they were pretty much the same as 15-30$ sennheisers, wasn't impressed, but the headphones industry is changing way too fast, so even today i would have to make a market research myself for a new pair if i wanted another sound signature.
Btw my first kinda decent pair was Sony Xba-C10 (got them for 25$ on sale) and it was my 1-st single armature driver iem and i still think that they can play classical solo piano music (like Chopin or Debussy) equally well as any of my 100-200$ headphones (even better then Pinnacle). Yes they have 0 bass and you can't play any modern music on them.
> The midrange ($30-$40) sony ones are the only brand I've had that can last a year.
I've had a couple pairs of midrange Sony earbuds (MDR-E821V) that I've used for the last 10+ years. I've replaced the padding with some silicone ones, but other than that, they work great for me.
I've recently bought these after having an earlier model for a year and a half (which I lost, they were still working fine). They've got a replaceable cable which solves the main issue I had with earlier earphones.
I have had my Audio Technica ATH500s for 10 years now. I paid $150AUD for them and of course I feel that was worth every dollar. One of the only pieces of technology I own that has lasted so long.
you are touching on a pet peeve of mine. i buy new earbuds every few months. i spend $5 to $10 on average. and i hesitate to buy more expensive ones because i can't tell if they will last any longer. your experience proves me right. i'll be looking for sony now though...
i'd suppose i fall into the category of not knowing any better. i use earbuds when on public transport, and i am exactly suffering from that problem that the trains are to loud and i need to raise the volume to compensate. (i listen to audio books and audio drama where every word counts. if i were to listen to music it would matter less if i miss a beat here or there)
i chose those earbuds for 3 reasons:
i can't stand having something stuck in my ears (makes me gag)
huge headphones that cover the ears look out of place, and i'd have to take them off if i actually do want to talk to someone. they also signal very much a "do not bother me" and "i don't care about my surroundings" message that i fear can come off as rude.
my kids play with the rubbers and pull them off because it's interesting. (they are explorers, that's their job)
at least this article makes me reconsider alternative options.
If you’re talking about ear/airpods then it’s possible some are purely “default option”.
However I do believe that Apple did a lot of research to find a good basic shape, and I and quite a few other dolls I know prefer them for their breathability (your ear isn’t designed to be sealed up) and sound awareness.
What’s better than AirPods? And don’t suggest those rubber things that make weird sounds when I move. Apple earbuds are the only ones I know of that I can tolerate.
Custom-fit ear molds - where an audiologist pours goo into your ears, lets it harden, and then sends those molds off to be made into headphone attachments - are the only way to use earbuds in a safe way. Every other route will either suffer “weird sounds when I move”, ear pain, or hearing damage due to instinctively using volume to make up for a lack of sound isolation under most normal circumstances.
You can set an iOS volume limit of no more than 50% on your phone to get a head start at protecting your hearing, but most people will find this unacceptable in the short-term due to perceived “quietness”.
Active noise canceling is a valid option, but only for either headphones over the ears or earbuds that are molded to fit your ear canal, at which point you likely won’t need ANC assuming that it stills works at all after the molds are attached!
> Custom-fit ear molds - where an audiologist pours goo into your ears, lets it harden, and then sends those molds off to be made into headphone attachments - are the only way to use earbuds in a safe way.
Where does one get those and how much does it cost?
There are a few companies that sell them, the cheapest ones I have seen are $500 and many are in the multiple thousands. And that's before paying the audiologist, though Ultimate Ears claims you can do the molding yourself at home and I have no idea if this is significantly worse or not.
Thank you, their website does not have any pricing information for the molds.
Though according to the map on their website the nearest place to me that does the molds is a 5 hour drive away. I guess you could probably get most audiologists to do it for you anyway?
Yes, I went to an unlisted nearby audiologist who had never heard of IEMs (this was many years ago) and he did my impressions for $25, plus he shipped the impressions to the IEM manufacturer for me. Based on that experience I would definitely not try to take my own impressions, but leave it to a professional.
> those rubber things that make weird sounds when I move.
The weird sound doesn't come from the earbud per say, it comes from the cables brushing against your clothes. Try flat cables it removes most of it. Or use earbuds that run the cables behind your ears / down your back.
I have tried many types of earbuds and I like klipsch the best. They have an oval silicone seal that fits comfortably in your ear without pressure and seals very well.
The only other earbuds I've tried that have such a good seal are models with memory-foam type surrounds you compress before you insert, but they're a bit of work to put in.
I have a pair of Sennheiser Momentum True Wireless that I quite like. They're quite comfortable and sound good. They do use rubber seals that can make a slight clicking if you don't size the rubber cover correctly and seat them well in your ear.
I really don't care much for IEMs. Cord noise, uncomfortable after an hour or so (even with quality memory foam tips), and actually a little too isolating IMO.
Sure, but the study that's discussed showed that most people don't do that. They do indeed turn the volume up to dangerous levels, mediated by the type of earphones they're using. You and I are not the norm, and so it's something that's worth looking into, no?
That's not really more accurate as it misses the entire point of the article. Everyone knows that prolonged exposure to loud music/noise is bad for your hearing. What most people are not good at judging, is whether they are inherently listening to music at damaging volume levels or not when using earbud style headphones, especially when ambient noise levels are high. And that is what is causing trouble for people. These aren't renegade, death metal adoring teens blasting music at high volumes just to be cool...
I remember reading that any volume head/earphone listening is bad for your ears if listening for a prolonged period of time, which is one of the primary reasons why I refuse to spend all day listening on headphones in open offices and instead just take a productivity hit (and work from home most of the time instead).
> don’t increase the volume to compensate
Anecdotally, the number of people whose music I can hear from meters away suggests that many people do increase the volume to compensate.
I believe the theory was that because the headphones/earbuds send energy directly into your ear canal (while external sounds bounce off more stuff and travel further), that it is more harmful (over prolonged periods of time). I don’t know how volume correlates with sound pressure, intensity and power, so I can’t comment on whether or not that’s true. Note that this was for prolonged (many hours) of listening, even at low volume.
With that said, I googled and came up blank looking for these studies, so you could be right. Without the studies to back it up, what I wrote is kinda meaningless.
I'm not sure why the 2 options being offered here seem to be either Airpod-style non-sealing hard plastic or full on over-ear cans. What about standard IEMs with better sealing silicon tips? Or the foam variants sold by Comply and similar? Wouldn't that better allow you to isolate external noise and listen at a lower volume than the separate cans? Especially for public transit use cases they'd seem to be better, unless I'm missing something?
You should also factor in diminished enjoyment - if you're worried about bothering your neighbor by turning up the volume and are just keeping it lower out of courtesy, well, that's not really an ideal scenario either, especially if you have to put up with barely hearing what you're listening to as a result.
Additionally, many of the products being suggested here are not really rated very well and would be hard to suggest to someone listening on even using cheap stuff like the Philips TX2. I don't understand how these can be recommended by any reasonable measure.
After using in ear headphones for a few years I started to develop fairly bad ear wax problems. Like, my ears would become completely blocked and I would have to go have them cleaned by a specialist. YMMV but putting things deep into your ear canal isn’t necessarily a good idea.
Simplifying: anything which ends up with long-term exposure to high decibel levels is bad for your ears.
You can mitigate this by reducing the decibel level. One excellent way of doing this is by blocking out the external sound, so you can listen to the sound you want at a lower level.
The easiest way to do that is to use in-ear monitors, IEMs, headphones that go quite deeply into your ears. Using Comply foam tips or silicone triple-flange tips can reduce the outside noise 25-35dB.
Alternatively, you can use ear defenders on top of nearly any earphone in existence.
Earbuds and a noisy car window down can do that, just for a point of easy comparison.
You should take a look at your EQ profile too. If you've got the lows and highs boosted up, that decimal number actually goes down, because you are driving those pretty hard, relative to the otherwise closer to flat sound.
Finally, you cannot always trust the warning on say a Samsung phone. It all depends on the encode, and its relative volume When that all reaches your ears. It is better than nothing though.
I have a little minor league loss on my drivers ear side. Many years driving with the window down. It all adds up.
Finally, I think there's a lot of damage being done by cheap earbuds. An awful lot of the cheap ones have really bad notches and peaks. People will turn them up to get all of the sound, and those sharp peaks can be 10DB or greater above the norm. It's just carving a hole in your ears. Get good earbuds. You can run them at a lower volume, and they sound better.
Wow, had no idea. Just looked it up and it's indeed correct. I had been going off the 85 db standard, which:
1. Is only for work exposure, assuming quiet elsewhere
2. Will nonetheless cause hearing loss in 8% of people when at workplace levels over a lifetime of work.
Yeah I’ve been using the decibel X app on my phone to measure environments. Started wearing earplugs on some flights as a result, and bought some reuseable ones for my keychain in case of a sudden loud environment. (Eg being pulled into a club by friends)
Am excited for ios 13, as it will bring noise detection to all apple watch and headphones. I think this will lead to more noise complaints in chronically loud environments, esp by workers.
For headphones, a decent test is seeing whether you can still hear yourself talk.
One plastic thing on the case broke, but it still functions. I like that they're clear, a bit harder to see.
For planes though I use the generic orange ones. I keep some in my travel bag at all times. The keychain ones are for unplanned situations I can't avoid.
Though your 70 db link has got me wondering even about subways and trains. Is a two hour journey at ~85 db worth worrying about? I had assumed it wasn't based on osha.
I'd use over ear headphones but it isn't clear to me how much they dampen, apart from the nrr rated industrial ones.
Over 20 years it just happens. I noticed one day when listening to some signals. Levels, at some frequencies were different.
Again, minor league. But, due to a few decades driving window down, it all did add up to a little something.
Overall in my life, apart from that window business, I have taken good care. The highs are rolling off some now. Normal.
Discrimination is still really good. But, I can now tell left ear from right.
Thanks for the tip. I will have to get a set.
So, you have to decide what is worth what.
At my peak, I could hear well through 22khz.
Today, I still hear very well, but range has dropped. 17khz or so.
I do not care much.
Discrimination, sensitivity related to things under 12khz is where all the good stuff is. Mostly normal aging. I have no worries. I can still often tell you who made a vintage watch by the sounds it makes.
Music is still great!
With a ton of work, I could have preserved more sensitivity, and a bit of range. But I have lived well too.
You must evaluate these things and act or not, now.
I got custom molded IEMs specifically for this reason when I started working in an open office. They are amazing and are totally comfortable being worn for 8+ hours per day.
I have a buddy that got some Etymotics and he's really happy with them.
Make sure you get a good carrying case for them. I dropped mine when I first got them and had to send them in for repairs. Now I keep them in a pelican case and haven't had any problems.
Oh and DO NOT buy the DIY ear mold kits - go to an audiologist and have them do it. It's not worth messing up your ears.
What's obviously missing from school is education about actual life concerns - health (including sexual, at least in some countries that pretend that sex doesn't happen), financial, social, etc.
It's not difficult to understand that ears are complex and sensitive. Just a little physical education could help illustrate to children that preserving their ears is of some importance. The problem is not non-isolating earphones. The problem is ignorance.
Also, I mentioned social education. Regarding non-isolating "earbuds", god help us, please educate people that those not wearing the earbuds probably do not want to hear your crappy music; and if you turn it up loud enough to drown out the ambient noise, then you will be essentially providing a narrow band public performance of whatever you are listening to.
Meanwhile, for less than $200 you can have some exceptional Shure in ear headphones that provide pretty flat and efficient response while simultaneously blocking out as much ambient sound as active (more expensive and battery operated) headphones do.
Agreed, but for most of the country, $200 is an unbelievable amount of money to spend on earbuds. Even among many of my tech friends, the thought of spending more than $30 on a thing that they will inevitably lose or break is stupid.
And this is coming from a guy with ~$1000 headphone setup at work..
> What's obviously missing from school is education about actual life concerns
Years ago, there was a tweet (by a German high school student) that put this very succinctly: "I have no idea about the job market, budgeting, investing, insurances, pension plans. But I can write a poem analysis. In 5 languages."
I have mild tinnitus and am 90% certain it came from my summers growing up and mowing lawns with shitty earbuds cranking shitty rock music off a shitty “skip proof” CD player Walkman kinda thing
Wish I had ever even considered that might not be good for me
Beyond the inefficient audio design of the headphones it feels like there should also be a better audio feedback so users are aware of how loud the sound is. Why can't the device read you back the volume level in words when you change the volume so you have an objective measure of how loud the volume is? The computer could say a number 1-10 based on the sound level. It makes sense that older devices wouldn't have this feature but a modern computer or phone should be able to do this without a custom app.
On linux you could hack something together to speak the alsa volume level like
amixer set Master 2+ && amixer get Master | grep dB | awk '{print $4}' | espeak -s 300
Your OS-level volume level is the maximum permitted level.
The volume in your ears is that multiplied by the amplitude of what you're listening to.
It frustrates me that when I listen to soft passages in classical music, I literally cannot turn the volume up loud enough to hear it because it won't go any higher. But then I hear a system beep and it leaves my ears ringing it's so loud.
What I really wish is that dynamic volume equalization would be built in as an option to the OS itself. Then "maximum" might actually be something useful.
Mobile phones already do this, rather annoyingly. I don't think it's going to help a kid for a device to play nanny. They'll reject the advice like they reject most other advice.
Meanwhile, those of us with other devices (such as using a car's aux jack) have to suffer with annoying notices and delays in boosting the volume to 100%.
We got headphones for the kids recently and they're deliberately volume-limited so that even at max volume the sound isn't too loud. It's probably just a resistor in series with the speaker coil, seems like a simple enough solution.
I'm very curious on whether Etymotics, with their strong seal and extreme isolation, are actually way better for your hearing. The company was started by Mead Killion, who has worked on hearing loss. But I can't say I've seen a real comparison done between earbuds, headphones (closed and open) and IEMs. There's quite a few questions here, such as: How much isolation is enough? Is there a difference in headphone usage in urban environments versus suburban ones?
Anecdotal and no data to back it up, but I have a pair of Shure IEMs and I love it. I listen at a fairly comfortable level all the time, and usually when I take them out I'm surprised by how loud the world is around me. Seems like that should mean I'm listening at an objectively quieter level than ambient noise.
Gosh, I remember when the walkman came out and the press was full of articles on how this was ruining kids' hearing (and civilization in general to boot). Of particular additional concern was how it blocked out exterior noise.
Now we have the panic that these don't block out enough noise, which, sacre bleu!, apparently makes things even worse!
Though for what it's worth my hearing's been shot since my late 30s. I suspect loud concerts, gunshots, explosions, and manned rocket launches have been worse.
The standard Apple earbuds form a terrible seal and encourage people to turn music up louder in order to hear it... I've been sort of idly waiting to see a big class action lawsuit targeting them as people raised when iPods were a thing realize that their hearing is shot.
I suspect many people prefer earphones that aren’t a tight fit. Anecdotally I have wired Bose noise cancelling ear phones I wear in noisy environments like planes. But I prefer AirPods for more routine use. They’re just more comfortable.
The NYC subway is ridiculously noisy. It seems to be concentrated to certain problem spots along the track where the screeching goes out of control. There should be targeted interventions to address them imo.
There should be targeted interventions to address them imo.
They are targeted. The issue is that in the end, it's a geometry problem -- in curves, one wheel wants to move faster than the other, which results in one wheel flange being dragged across the railhead. The treatments range from the minor (friction modification such as lubricants or sand) to the major (independent wheels, steerable trucks, wheel/rail dampers) and all have affects on vehicle performance on tangent track, or high costs.
A confounding factor is that I think they have changed the typical operating speeds in many parts of the BART system over the years. Also, it isn't like the entire system is made up of 40-50 year old, original parts. Train cars, wheels, sections of rail, and maybe even bits of rail-bed have been added to the system, renovated, and/or replaced over the years.
Qualitatively, I think that I have experienced similar painful noises in every decade since the late 1970s, when I was a little kid and my father worked for BART. In the early 1990s, I can remember people talking about how they sometimes got a quiet train or a loud train on a familiar commute. We had similar observations about different road surfaces put down by Caltrans. I tend to ride it at least once every 2-3 years during return visits. Also, at various places in the East Bay, weather depending, you can hear the early morning trains on at-grade or above-grade track from quite far away. I have heard very similar noises in recent years when visiting the same places, giving me a nostalgic kick as it sounded so familiar.
The usual solution to this is gentle curves and conical wheel shapes. In a curve the train tilts slightly causing the wheels on the inside of the curve to run on a smaller diameter of the wheel and the wheels on the outside on a larger diameter.
Of course once you have tight turns or cylindrical wheels (wtf BART) you get godawful screeching.
The usual solution to this is gentle curves and conical wheel shapes
Standard wheels are conical. You can optimize the wheel and track profiles for curves, but that may affect the wheel behavior on tangent track where "hunting" might occur.
They are, which is why I called it the usual solution. A lot of trams and subways use too tight curves (which can't really be avoided all the time) but then there's the BART which uses cylindrical wheels for no good reason except it's expensive to change now.
It's a tricky problem for sure, and I didn't intend to solve it with my comment, just shed some light on what the problem space actually is to people less familiar.
Is there a way for the average consumer to measure the sound level output of their earbuds? There's got to be a better way than just seeing if that volume setting causes discomfort; I'm sure I'm already acclimated to higher volumes.
If you search for decibel meters, you will find some as low as $20, maybe cheaper on ebay. You could split it with some friends/family.
You need to simulate making a seal between the meter and the thing you want to measure. You can put the meter through a hole in a piece of foam to measure the sound of regular headphones.
For in-ears, I stared with a toilet paper tube and cut it down to a small cylinder and tried to seal the earbud in there.
I got one and found that my typical listening levels were within safety threshold, it actually made me confident to sometimes turn up some things a bit louder without worrying.
Another thing is comparing what you have to a known reference. The decibel levels of apple ear buds at different volume levels of an iphone are out there if you search. It won't be that accurate but it will give you a general idea.
iOS 13 is adding this and displaying the data in the health app. Though I think it's just an average headphone level, not moment by moment. Also unsure how they're calibrating it for non-apple headphones, and or AirPods gunned up by earwax.
I recommend the TaoTronics TT-EP008s. They're active noise cancelling and only $40. I bought them when I thought I had lost my trusty Bose QC20s. My Bose's were found and returned to me, and I can confirm that the TaoTronics are on par. They sound slightly different, but I don't think most people would identify one or the other as sounding superior. You can also pair them with memory foam tips for better passive isolation, which is complementary to the active noise cancellation (the former works better for high frequencies, and the latter is only effective for low frequencies).
Ehh - I've had QC20s for 5+ years and The TaoTronics you suggested for 1+ year. I would disagree that they're on par.
The QC20s have way better noise cancellation and the frequency response on them (and most Bose products) is more pleasant to my ear as Bose tends to sound better at the lower frequencies.
Yes, the QC20s are 5x the cost - but in this case you get what you pay for.
With the wired headphones, Apple offered stock headphones and separately sold in-ear headphones for $79, the sound quality of which was actually pretty amazing. [1]
I'm super bummed we're at AirPods 2.0 and still no in-ear option. It's not just an aesthetic choice, it's literally a public health concern, as the article states.
I own Bose QC35's and they're great, but they're bulky so I don't always carry them with me the way I can small earphones. I really wish Apple would make in-ear AirPods... I even bought some generic Chinese ones [2] but although they kind of work, they quality isn't anywhere close (in sound quality, in Bluetooth reliability, and size and in construction generally).
Agreed. And I find the cord to be a benefit - if I want to pull the headphones out I can just let them hang around my neck and don't have to fumble with them to put them in a pocket or back into their case.
I love music, yet I pretty much never listen to it except in a live setting (with earplugs of course!) because I really really don’t want to lose my hearing. I _could_ listen to it all day every day while I work like my coworkers but I know I have a tendency to blast it when I listen to it.. so I just don’t. Kind of sad.
I can’t help wonder if Apple are at least in part behind this increasing awareness of the impact of noise on wellness. It’s known they are releasing active noise cancelling headphones (perhaps this year) and WatchOS 6 has a noise meter as one of the complications...
I love my airpods, but this is the reason I also went and bought some noise-cancelling over ear headphones. I'd always have to compromise between hearing what I was playing vs potentially getting hearing damage on my commute.
As a rule of thumb, if you're standing next to a busy street and listening to a podcast, you should not be able to understand what is being said. If you can clearly hear the podcast your volume is too loud.
Not necessary. If your earbuds (or IEM's) have really good isolation you should be able to do that at low volume. I have a pair of Shure 215, and they work like earplugs.
Yeah, if you have really good sound isolation then you would need an in-canal SPL measurement. My rule of thumb is assuming the poor sound isolation typical of most earbuds.
I've used earbuds, but don't like them. I mainly enjoy loud music. Metal, punk, electronic like VibeSquad and Bassnectar, and so on. With lots of bass and sub-bass. So I can really feel it. I have a pair of ancient JBL L96s, driven by a clean 100W per channel amp.
So with earbuds, I find that I'm always increasing the volume, seeking body-shaking bass that they'll never produce.
My new earbuds have a clean and fast enough sub response that I can tell exactly when one track is being mixed into the next in a techno mix, just from the sub changing - but after years of using them, that is the first time I can say that! They also produce sub at lower volumes rather than just at max, which means I don't need the volume turned all the way up.
Each L96 has an 8" bass reflex woofer. They're very efficient, and get very loud. Maybe too boomy for some, especially in small rooms. But I reduce room resonance with suitably placed cork and high-density foam absorbers.
For ad hoc testing, I like to use an An-ten-nae mix that includes a slide down to maybe 20 Hz. I can totally drive a small frame house with that cut.
My office is rather small -- ~3m x ~3m x 2.7m high. So I have the speakers overhead, with their backs ~10cm from the ceiling. So that drives the floor and ceiling more than the walls. And there's far better sound isolation between floors than between units.
Still, I can't crank it as much as I could when I lived in a house.
The thing is that those headphones are the opposite of noise cancelling (because it is open). But that's the whole point - I want to be aware more of my surroundings than my music, especially when you're in a public space. If you care about the sound quality, I wouldn't recommend it.
For the same reason I'm generally hesitant to use a VR headset, as it almost completely blocks your senses. Total immersion is unnecessary to me.
it is so simple
when sound pressure * hour == much stress to your ear.
same logic, if sound origin getting much closer from your drumstick, your ears can damage.
most worries are it won't be suddenly.
the habit using earbuds most hours makes slowly killing your ear.
The ear is pretty most impossible to cure.
so, keep volume down and use speaker rather than earbuds.
You need different ear buds for different tasks. If you're trying to isolate yourself, use in-ear buds. If you need to maintain awareness of your surroundings, use canal-adjacent buds like air pods or sony MDR-J10s. If you're in an especially noisy environment like a party, using a lawnmower or vacuum cleaner, use a pair of Plugfones with a real NRR value.
> “I’m seeing a lot of younger people in their twenties who are coming in with ringing in their ears,” says Sarah Mowry, an assistant professor of otolaryngology at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine. “I think it’s probably related to this all-day earbud use. It’s noise trauma.”
Citation needed before we dump another criticism on "milinneals" and their phone obsession.
Arw there actually more young people with hearing problems than before?
Are loud concerts not a more likely culprit? I know I've been to plenty in my day that led to ringing and clogged ears for a week, and I have super low level tinnitus as a result (I can hear the ringing in very quiet environments but not in day to day life).
If you read further down there are plenty of citations.
"Brian Fligor, an audiologist who has studied the impact of earbuds on hearing damage, says that people typically listen to their earbuds about 13 decibels higher than the background noise."
"2014 research, conducted by Fligor and others, looked at the impact of urban environments on people’s headphone listening levels by measuring sound levels through a mannequin’s ears. The research involved asking passersby to take their headphones off and place them on this mannequin at the same volume level they had been listening to. The average listening level was 94 decibels, 58 percent of people polled were exceeding their weekly sound exposure limit — and an overwhelming 92 percent of them were wearing AirPod-style earbuds."
"According to the American Osteopathic Association, approximately one in five teens today suffer some form of hearing damage, a rate that’s 30 percent higher than it was 20 years ago. The World Health Organization estimates that over “1 billion young people” are at risk of hearing loss, primarily from listening to music on headphones or earbuds."
I don't read that as a dump on millennials, I read it more as a criticism that the default headphone style has shifted from superaural to poorly fitted earbuds. I definitely think that circumaural are the best you can get without custom fitting but superaural headphones blocked a lot more sound than the apple earbuds... but when iPods came out they pushed those hard as a trendy stylish choice.
For me it’s not about style but practicality. Headphones are huge. AirPods are tiny. Rubber ear buds make weird squelching sounds when I walk. Apple earbuds are the only thing that works for me.
Have you tried Comply tips? https://www.complyfoam.com/ (or any foam tip really) They're at practically every audio store, pretty easy and cheap to try. Personally I love them, and can't stand rubber tips.
I use CIEMs that mechanically block out external sound. I can listen to music at very low levels even in noisy environments. Expensive (mine were ~ $1200 from 64 Audio) but worth it.
This doesn’t work for everyone, but I can wear air pods under the 3M Peltor hearing protection (what pro Starcraft players use). Let’s me use them while mowing.
i used to use in-ear earphones that fit really well and isolated the outside so i could be fine with 30% or less volume even on the train, but they always broke after a few months and finally broke down and got airpods (been using them for about 9 months with no breakage so far) but their fitting is atrocious and i have to use those plastic attachments that hold them in... nevertheless i now have to be careful i never go above 50% volume because of the lack of isolation.... when i’m in an airplane or train... it’s _very_ hard...
Anything pitched by bullshit "tech" companies is going to be bad for you.
How is it that it's taken this long for people to realize these fucking ear buds are bad for you?
Who thought, "Oh hey, let's shove a speaker directly into peoples ears so they can hear music louder than otherwise possible and they'll love us for it."
Jesus, leave it to the HN microcosm to pick up on something only after the "experts" published a bullshit article. lol
But then again, anything to the negative in a way that isn't "kosher" with HN's fucked up overly privileged sensibilities is going to be downvoted lol.
WITHIN 1 minute lol.
How about one of you dipshits run an algo on how long it takes for non-positive comments to be downvoted and see if it's even possible based on the user base.
Here's a tip which I find helpful in many forums : If I don't want to be downvoted, avoiding using an abrasive manner when criticizing many of the users is something that seems to help.
If you don't mind being downvoted, then one can, of course, disregard that, but if one does, one shouldn't complain about being downvoted afterwards.
Your account seems quite new. You're allowed to be negative on HN. But empty rants will get downvoted. You might be interested in this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9317916
I downvoted you for being ridiculously reductive. Whatever you consider to the the opposite of an ear bud is probably also being pitched by some "tech" company. Even assuming tech companies are overall bad, you're just throwing confirmation bias at the problem.
