The ultimate silence......

[Bluefront]

blackworx......once more. AFAIK, loud sounds do not go from 0db to 100db without a time delay. So if the loud sound was some distance away, you actually hear a lower db sound an instant before the 100db sound strikes your ear. This gives the ear some time to react (shut down) before getting hit with the 100db.

Using ear-buds at loud volumes, reduces that reaction time, and the ear cannot react quickly enough. Result....more damage. Supposedly exposure to a loud noise always causes damage to the hair cells of the inner ear.

I take the safe approach.....I don't/won't use ear-buds. I listen to music using small speakers at low volume, or not at all.

[qviri]

Up to a point you are quite correct. But it's kids who are most at risk, kids who may not be mature enough to see the potential problem.

Vast majority of these kids have parents.

[blackworx]

you actually hear a lower db sound an instant before the 100db sound strikes

With all respect, that doesn't sound right to me. I'm afraid I don't know enough to refute it, but what I can say is that in all my years of reading on various subjects around sound, I have never heard mention of such a phenomenon - direct or implied.[/quote]

[thejamppa]

Up to a point you are quite correct. But it's kids who are most at risk, kids who may not be mature enough to see the potential problem.

Vast majority of these kids have parents.

but in current society most parents work full time leaving education for school and hope because they have no time school could also assume basics of parentship which is impossible and results are being seen now in our societies with disturbunces among youth and general how to say... bad feeling among youths.

Without parents kids are lost. Kids now only what they want, not what they need and cannot self put limits, which is seen when youths go over the limits and laws of society... Just because parents did not had time to raise their kids because of working.

[Terje]

I believe high level noises rarely come "fast enough" when you listen to music to cause the same damage as an external noise.

The music you listen to usually have "the same level" or a slowly increasing level as the ear adapts (dampens) what you currently listen to and even most crazy kids start playing at a low volume and increase until its comfortable, not even they want the pain of getting a full volume sound spike into their ears.

So, in terms of high volume surprises, I really doubt that an ipod causes more damage than what external surprises can cause.

Of course, in terms of long term exposure, the difference might be different, but I suspect that most people get more damage from a night at the club than from ipods.

I am personally very sure that I got more ear injury from lazy use of ear protection equipment in young days while working holidays on building sites than I got from anything else. Need to use a jackhammer for 5 minutes and cannot find those ear muffs...? You generally just get the job done rather than spend 10-15 minutes hunting for muffs.

I currently have in-ear earbuds (shure), and I believe that due to the noise reducing properties such headsets have, I a fair bit less volume than with a more "open" earbud (at the opening of the ear) where I would need to crank up the volume more to kill more of the background noise.

Yes, ipods are probably no good for the average persons hearing, but I suspect thats its not making many people deaf either. Reduced hearing in some frequencies, sure, but to make sound pressure to make you deaf, that takes a bomb or maybe someone hitting you so hard over the ear in the swimming pool that your eardrum pops.

Doubt an ipod can do that. Most people complain that they do not even have enough power for a decent headset