Go and talk to older musicians who always wore hearing protection, and then go and talk to musicians of the same age who never did. You'll see the effects very clearly.
I’m not wrong, I’ve listened to 100db+ for a good 35 years, 5 hours a day, every single day. So how is it I have near perfect hearing? Doesn’t that break your theory? No? because it’s not based on fact.
You're absolutely wrong, I've got decades of live music experience. The older musicians with poor hearing are the most evangelical about using hearing protection because they never did. The older ones with good hearing will tell you that they have always used hearing protection.
It's not a theory, there are numerous studies about this very subject!
Recording engineer here of the same age as the OP: perceived (spectrum summed) volume and associated hearing loss is proportional to the level of distortion (not simple noise) in the signal. I get freaked by footsteps a hundred yards behind me on the sidewalk at night. Fix your mix levels for better hearing.
Edit: lift the noise floor in your print to mask undesirable signal path snr harmonics. This is the technique employed (very non exclusively in this example) by state of the art DACs such as in the CH 1.5 disc player.
> I get freaked by footsteps a hundred yards behind me on the sidewalk at night
This doesn't mean anything.
Hearing loss is directly correlated with listening to audio at high volumes. The amplitude and distance to the speaker is all that matters. It's well-established science.
Much of the apparent distortion in post 83 tracks is caused by the horizontal alignment of near field monitors beginning with the Yamaha NS-10 popularity. Realignment is a octagonal problem.
Edit: just try swivelling your earbuds 90 degrees..