[hoggle]

At age 32 my hearing is apparently at the level of a 66 year old. I'm not much of a concert attender nor drug user so the only real explanation the doctor could give for my disappointing audiogram was my habit of regularly working with headphones on (I always took care of moderate volume, mind you).

I wasn't expecting this result at all, I actually thought my hearing was perfect but hearing loss starts at the highest frequencies and continues to the lower frequencies exponentially. The route towards "Sorry, what did you say?" doesn't take as long as you might suspect.

[kmfrk]

Earbuds can do that; the audio "sounds" low to you, but you're only perceiving the delta between the device volume and environment noise. That's why I stopped using earbuds; when I would put my hand to my earbuds, the volume would shoot up from isolating the environment noise, and I got an idea of how loud my device actually was.

I recommend noise-cancelling earphones, because they deal with the delta problem for the most part; but you can obviously still run into the problem of setting and forgetting the volume, which is fine for one thing but too loud for something else.

[kazinator]

Get a second opinion. Maybe they are trying to sell you on expensive hearing aids.

It's also possible you didn't ever have great hearing. (Do you have any "before" audiogram to compare against, from when you were a child?)

[drzaiusapelord]

Uh, seriously? Right now we have a huge public health issue with young people and hearing loss. It isn't some scam. Turns out the ipod/iphone revolution came with some external costs.

http://learningenglish.voanews.com/content/one-billion-young...

"If a person takes a subway to go from one place to the other for half an hour in the morning and a half an hour in the evening, and every day has to turn up the volume on his device because there is so much of noise of the train and everything around, and is listening to - let us say 100 db (decibels) for one hour every day, his hearing is going to get irreversibly damaged in a few years, in a couple of years time, for sure."

---

Instead of subway, replace that with loud open-plan office and instead of one hour per day, replace that with 8+ hours. I think we need to address hearing damage the same way we started addressing RSI in the office back in the 80s. There are a lot of people who have no idea how much they are damaging their ears.

[icebraining]

Uh, seriously? Right now we have a huge public health issue with young people and hearing loss.

Isn't that the best kind of thing to use in a scam? Much more believable :) Parent didn't say "it's a scam", (s)he said "get a second opinion", which sounds like good advise to me.

[drzaiusapelord]

The parent very much suggested the doctor was being dishonest. Parent wrote: "Maybe they are trying to sell you on expensive hearing aids."

I don't see how anyone could interpret that in any other way.

[kazinator]

That is correct, however, I didn't suggest that the the entire public health problem of hearing loss is only a false perception that is result of wide-spread overdiagnosis, which was the bulk of your counter-argument to my post. (If that were the case, what use would there be in getting a second opinion?)

I wouldn't jump to any hasty conclusions based on being tested once, with one audiologist's piece of equipment. How do you know it didn't have a calibration problem or other malfunction. Bad gain in some analog circuit or whatever, and the measurement is decibels off.

Also, I'd have my ear canals cleaned thoroughly, and stay away from loud noise for a couple of days before the test, and any foods or medications that can affect hearing. If you're on antibiotics for something, don't book a hearing test. You want your real hearing tested.

(I was on ciprofloxacin recently, and things didn't sound right until a day after the last pill. My Sennheiser phones sounded like $5 dollar store earbuds, and I couldn't get a decent tone out of my guitar amplifier rig, though I played with the 32 band equalizer and other controls endlessly.)

[icebraining]

Suggested they can be being dishonest.

[kazinator]

Not even dishonest, but biased by an obvious vested interest, which subconsciously leads them to exaggerate the diagnosis. Some people have it as a personality trait to make mountains out of molehills. For any alleged condition, if you get three opinions from three specialists, they will differ even though everyone is honest.

You might actually have the hearing of a 45-year-old at 32, but due to some interpretive latitude and instrumentation error, they can get away with reporting it as a 66-year-old.

[wiredfool]

It's not just the ipod revolution, it was happening in the walkman era, starting about the time sony came out with the little turbo headphones. (which then morphed into the earbuds)

The killer was the balance between bass and treble, the phones were plenty loud enough, they just had no bass response to speak of until the treble was loud enough to cause permanent hearing damage. Earbuds today might be a little better, but they're still fighting the physics.

I did damage to my hearing until I bought good headphones (Grado SR60. They were ~60 back in 1992, not much more than that now). They had more bass at 2 than the earbuds had at 9. There were a couple of tracks that demo'd the effect really well, where a drum or bass line just wasn't there in the little earphones.

Now, my hearing drops off above 12khz and below about 35. And it's much harder to hear things when there's other distracting noise going on. I can tell someone's talking, just not what they're saying. This is especially true when someone's yelling from another room over the not terribly loud music in my office. It's also really bad talking to someone on the phone, but I'm not sure how much of that is hearing loss and how much is crappy cell connections.

[mondoshawan]

How about both? Taking BART into SF for an hour every day, then wearing headphones the entire workday because of the open floor plan.

I do this now -- pretty worried about my hearing...

[MetaCosm]

Focus on noise isolation. Using ER-4P (https://www.etymotic.com/consumer/earphones/er4.html) with triple-flange tips is about the best you can get. Better even than $1000+ customs (exception made for Noble silicon customs).

[mersault]

Any reason to go with the ER-4P over the hf5 or hf3 product line, if I'm not looking for studio mastering grade audio reproduction?

Put another way, judged purely on niose reduction is there much difference between the ER-4P and the rest of the Etymotic product line?

[MetaCosm]

Indeed, I believe they share tips.

[kazinator]

One problem with $1000 ear plugs (and $1000 speaker cables, etc) is that some of the microphones used to record the music only cost a hundred bucks, and it passed through numerous 10 cent op-amp chips in various studio equipment.

[mpdehaan2]

I mostly have experience with Westone or Shure's, but I like Comply foam tips a lot better - more comfortable, anyway. Worth checking out.

http://www.complyfoam.com/

[yarrel]

Oh yeah those are really comfortable. I found they broke/wore out quickly though.

[Symbiote]

Is it healthy to wear these every day?

I have some Etymotic earplugs, which I use at nightclubs, gigs and concerts, but from the way they feel I don't think it would be good for my ears to use them daily.

[lukev]

Assuming you aren't actually pushing them in far enough to press against your eardrums, you're fine.

The physical feeling you get is just pressure on your outer ear canal - it might be uncomfortable (though it shouldn't be, try a different size plug) but it won't lead to hearing loss.

The kind of hearing loss that article is talking about is only caused by exposure to loud noise, and you're only going to be better off wearing earplugs for that.

[Glide]

I have noise isolation earbuds and always turn them REALLY low (like 1-3 on the volume scale on the mac). I'm always shocked at how loud people have their headphones.

[monksy]

Here's where I'm coming from: I wish they would push to make the train a bit quieter. (I'm thankful for having a good network in Chicago) Take a ride to the airport on the blueline in Chicago, fly to London, and when you're on the tube you'll notice a world of difference in the noise level.

It goes from a loud clanking to the hum of the tube.

[kazinator]

I believe that light commuter trains should have rubberized wheels. Much of the noise is steel-on-steel action.

If you've ever had a rubber bushing wear out in a car's suspension linkage, you know what I'm talking about: thunk, clang, squeak!

[freditup]

Would noise-cancelling headphones help address this? I imagine you can listen to music at a safer level if background noise is eliminated.

[MetaCosm]

Yeah, generally ANC (Active Noise Cancellation) headphones can help. IEMs that block sounds are even better than ANC headphones.

[chinathrow]

To my expierience (since 2009), ANC works really great with steady tones such as the constant humming on a passenger plane or the motor sound of a sports plane.

But for voices, walking steps of folks, cars around you: not so much.

[JonnieCache]

Active noise cancelling should only really be needed in very loud environments, like the subway. In an office you should be fine with a well fitting set of closed back on/over-ear headphones.

I have a pair of Denon AH-D340 and I can't hear a damn thing with them on, even with a noisy conversation happening right next to me. I use them at 1/3 volume on my macbook most of the time. They have a lovely flat unhyped response as well, despite being styled after beats by dre.

If your office is as loud as a subway, my heart goes out to you.

Those fancy in ear monitoring ones are probably even better, but I personally find them uncomfortable.

[xorcist]

There is a sound to active noise cancellation systems. Not really white noise, but a sort of faint, high-pitched noise.

It's not audible in airplane or other loud environemnts, but I never understood how you can work with that in your ears. Apparently some people doesn't find it irritating. But make sure to try someone else's before you spend hundreds on dollars on one for the office.

[chadgeidel]

Purely anecdotal, but in my opinion in-ear-monitors (like the Sure or Etymotics) are much better at blocking out sounds than an active noise cancelling headphone like the Bose QCs.

[tacone]

Yes, seriously. It could be many things, for instance he may be allergic to something. The possible causes are many.

[dominotw]

Thats crazy, I am sorry. Is the hearing loss irreversible ?

[paublyrne]

Hearing loss is indeed irreversible.

So take good care of your ears, don't be complacent. (I'm a drummer)

[duderific]

Also a drummer here...for several years I played in extremely loud bands and went to shows without earplugs. By the time I wised up it was too late. Now I have a terrible time hearing conversations in restaurants or other situations where there is background noise. I imagine in my later years I'll probably need hearing aids.

[sliverstorm]

Most hearing loss is