your hearing

I had my hearing tested for a job thing about a year ago and it was fine. I do notice that my left ear hears a bit better than my right, though. (The test confirmed that. My left ear hears basically perfectly, my right a bit less so.)

oh i don't want to have my hearing tested. i mean, honestly, i don't think i listen to music THAT loud, but i have been known to prefer a higher volume. but i never have to ask people to repeat themselves or anything...

what?

Headphone-induced TINNITUS

tinnitus

be careful, especially with headphones and in live environments.

fucking hate these threads

I have some tinnitus in left ear.

I blame too much 50W amp in small room action, tho.

just had my ears tested. they're poyfect. but i don't really like/listen to loud music, live or recorded, unless it's classical.

World = totally blown apart.

i'm worried about those 0_-! moments when i hit play on my ipod and then don't react fast enough when i realize they were just hooked up to my speakers. ouch. it must look funny to passers-by.

Get a decent pair of cans, dude.

my hearing is still pretty good although i do have some tinnitus. although i really hate listening to anything at high volume these days.

i assume my hearing is pretty bad. due to playing loud guitar, being near loud drums, playing loud music etc.

i haven't had my ears formally tested though

I seem to have lost the ability to focus my hearing many years ago - so I can be quite unable to hearing what someone's saying to me, even if they're right in front of me, if there's even a modest amount of other mixed background noises of the type you'd expect to find in a pub or similar (background music, other people talking etc.).

Consequently people often think I'm being rude and ignorant even when I'm still reasonably sober and not even trying....

Why do people dislike listening to stuff at loud volume?

`Cos it's bad for you. I've had Tinnitus screaming in my right ear since 1999. It's indescribably unpleasant. Learn from my mistake.

i don't know what tinnitus is rly. someone explain for me

i don't dislike listening at volumes i'm just afraid of it now

A constant ringing in the ear (much like after a concert) that NEVER GOES AWAY.

:/

it's funny though, cuz if you listen to professionally produced CD's at high volumes -- i mean let's say at the top volume on your headphones -- i mean they're unbelievably loud! shockingly so sometimes. i thought the top volume would be loud but reasonable...

A lad who drums in one of my bands, and is studying at one of those expensive sound recording colleges, said the other day that he "didn't see the point in looking after his ears, cos all the best sounding records were recorded by people whose ears are fucked from mixing and recording all these great sounding records". Or something along those lines. I just went o_O and wished I was young and had opinions again.

I have a similar thing to Stewart a couple of posts ago. As well as taht, I really struggle with telephone conversations if there's the slightest bit of noise appening around me. I keep meaning to see an audiologist, or even a doctor about it - somewhat ironically I work at an ENT hospital, and have a lot of contact with the RNID and loads of audiology students, but none of them have projects that involve just testing my hearing. And I don't bother trying to see the doctor as I moved house a couple of years ago, and I'm literally across the road from their catchment area, so if they need my address for something I'll have to tell them I've moved, and then they'll kick me out, and I can't be fucked registering for a new doctor. Stupid reason I know.

I visited an audiologist a few years ago and was relieved to find that my hearing was very good. I made the appointment because I started to experience odd "clipping" episodes when exposed to piercing mid and upper-mid tones; my ears would sort of max out and I'd have this physically uncomfortable digital-distortion kinda of a thing. They couldn't find any physical cause which suggests it's maybe something psychological.

I thought it might be stress-related because it most frequently occurred when I was in close proximity to my crying/screaming kid; however, my first experiences of the phenomenon pre-date being a dad - football crowds and loud music on headphones also induced it, back in 2003/4. But maybe watching Everton fall behind at Palace and listening back to a rough mix of a track I was trying to finish quickly were stressful enough...

Doesn't happen as much now.

I never get anything like that, or the commonly-described forms of tinnitus, although occasionally I hear a mild, mid-frequency background tone (maybe about 800Hz or so) in one ear, but this has been happening since I was about 9 or 10 or soemthing. I remember asking my mum what the noise was, and she couldn't hear anything, and that was that.

What I want really is a certificate from an audiologist saying "he is interested in what you're saying, he just can't hear you very well in this sort of environment for x reason, and not being rude and ignorant".

Can you just make an appointment then? I assumed you'd have to be referred by a GP or something?

Yes, I was referred by my GP. I can't recall how long elapsed before I got the letter confirming the appointment - months, I think.

This was a thread I had quite forgotten I'd started about my hearing weirdness.

As you age you lose your ability to hear higher frequencies. I believe this has to do with the lessening of elasticity of something or other in the ear.

Differentiations in vocal sounds in speech occur in higher frequencies much the way that timbral variation occurs in higher overtone partials.

This is what causes the inability to understand speech in sonically busy environments. I don't know if this is a technical term but I've always heard it referred to as "foreground/background discrimination".

I have chronic tinnitus in my right ear, and a fair bit of high-end loss in my other ear. I'm also over 50 so I've had about 35 years of loud music listening as I started going to gigs in earnest as soon as I could drive and I started playing the drums around that same time (still do). It's actually bad enough that if I isolate my listening source I can actually hear the same complex sound as differently pitched between ears.

This is a kind of "do as I say, not as I do" moment, but if you are an "industry professional" I recommend going to an ear specialist and getting fitted with proper ear protection (not the silly foam plugs you can buy @ clubs) and paying attention to your monitoring levels. Excessive volume only leads to ear fatigue, which tends to lead to increasing monitoring levels, which is a vicious cycle that WILL result in hearing loss over the long term.

Note: the worst offenders I've noticed are DJs and live-sound engineers.

PS-caveat: I should also mention that I had a string of Winter-time middle ear infections in the early 80s which lead has lead to a noticeable scarring of my eardrums. The first time a new doctor looks in my ears they generally say "woah!", at which point I laugh, it's that predictable. I can't say exactly how much this contributes... but it can't be good ;)

As a former dj i know my hearing is a bit fuX0rd, mismatched. However, in the last 6 months I went to a doctor and had lots of old ear wax flushed out by a doctor, and now my hearing is lot better. go figure. Ask your doc to have a look.

I had an earwax-hearing loss episode about 10 years ago. I thought I had gone deaf in one ear, but the doc said it was just wax. They pumped a ton of water in my ear and got out about as much old dried wax as the meat from one walnut. Then I could hear just fine.

Listen to Alex while you still can. Don't fuck around.

wow so this wax thing is ferreal huh?

i might have to do that... though i don't like the sound of it

I have tinnitus in BOTH ears, right ear heriditary, mostly my whole life. Left ear, who knows? Didn't think I was listening to music too loud, but what kid knows what loud is. I'm hitting 40. I leave air filters on throughout the house because silence makes me completely nuts. I cannot be in a completely quiet room because the ringing will get louder.

Getting the wax out is good. MAKE them flush them with water. It's been my experience that if the doctor goes in with metal tongs to pull the wax out it can cause a minor trauma to the eardrum (this is my theory from experience, I have no scientific report to back it up)and within a week the ringing will get worse -- or in my case, I had episodes that would last about three days on, three days off, where the ringing was so bad I could barely hear myself speak. I'm not kidding.

As someone on another board stated, go to a Tinitus board and you will get depressed. Believe it or not, Xanax or Valium can help in some instances. Not as a preventative, but if you're someone who notices the ringing getting worse when you're stressed, this can help. Also, a hearing aid can help. You'll feel like an old man, but hey, once you boost the sound from outside (I'm told by audiologists the diff here and a walkman is that the aid carefully boosts the frequencies your hearing tests say you need more of...) it can help you fill in the sound.

Some theorists think the ringing is like a phantom limb. The ear wants to hear these frequencies and creates them...I don't know. But it can be very depressing.

I do still listen with headphones, but I keep things at a reasonable volume (At least I HOPE it's a reasonable volume). Mostly because listening in the open air I can't always make stuff out as well...and I intend to enjoy the music as much as possible.

i'm very glad i started wearing earplugs to live shows about 10 years ago.

the only thing is that i can't wear them when the band i'm in plays onstage, so i think i have some damage from live gigs.

i HIGHLY recommend these proper hearing protection thingies:
http://www.etymotic.com/ephp/er20.aspx
they don't muffle the sound like the foam ones. used them in a live setting with absolutely no problem

I have very sensitive ears and as a result I have to sometimes force myself to go a few days without listening to music at all so they can stay in shape, otherwise they feel sore or start hissing. I cannot and will never go to see live music without my earplugs, ever. I'd kill for the resilient ears most people have, but instead I've had to just seriously reduce the amount of music I listen to instead, and I almost never wear headphones. My hearing is fine at least, but remember, you don't get your hearing back. Listening to music too loud is the sonic equivalent of driving recklessly fast for no reason, and what happens then? people get physically mangled and killed, just like with hearing.

i might have to do that... though i don't like the sound of it That's probably because all the high frequencies are blocked out.
I had to say it.

=P