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Volume levels Posted by Linda Irvin

27 January 2009

The RNID are running an ongoing campaign called ‘Don’t loose the music‘ to help and inform people about the dangers of listening to music at too high a level and about ways to protect your hearing.

Their research indicates that people around the country are listening to their music at unbelievably high levels with more than one in five exposing their ears with sound levels of 100 decibels for one hour each day which they quote is “the equivalent of hearing a pneumatic drill 10 feet away.”

Dull or fuzzy hearing or tinnitus can be temporary signs of listening to your music too loud which can become permanent. There is no cure once the damage has been done. The only solution is to take a preventative approach. How best then to set safe headphone volume levels?

The RNID makes the following three recommendations:

Take a five-minute rest for every hour you listen to your MP3 player to allow ears to recover.
If you crank up the volume on noisy trains or busy streets, invest in noise-cancelling or sound-isolating headphones (Ear-canals/closed-back) that cut out background noise.
Remember that even a small change in volume can have a big effect.

By reducing the background noise you will be able to listen to your music more clearly at a lower volume.

In support of this, be sure to choose the best fitting ear adaptors to ensure that you do not have to turn the volume up excessively. Ear-canal headphones that fit well are probably better than simple in-ear designs.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 27th, 2009 at 2:10 pm and is filed under Headphones. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.