HF hearing loss - how much is too much?

Posted: Fri Apr 18, 2008 6:06 am

Hey guys/gals, I wanted to bring this thread back up. I've been really experiencing the ringing lately. I'm 39 and have been a keyboard/bass player in rock bands for 15 years off and on. Sometimes I wore ear plugs, sometimes not. But now, I am suddenly very aware and am very concerned about what loss I have and how to best prevent further hearing loss. Now I always where hearing protection at gigs and at practice. Our band is very loud, but I dont know how loud in db terms. My question is; Are ear plugs enough to prevent further damage? If not, I think I better just stop being in the band as composing and recording are way more important to me at this point in my life. I wear the foamies and I get them in there really good, to where it really muffles things well, but is that enough for a really loud band. THey are rated at up to 30 db.

Eric

Posted: Fri Apr 18, 2008 8:57 am

I read that 85dB at 8 hours is quite safe. However a rock band can be up around 115dB. Assuming the ear plugs are perfect and that they are used correctly (its surprising how many people don't know to insert them) then:

115-30=85dB.

But that’s not at all frequencies!

Most ear plugs act more are like butterworth filters, then an all pass filters. So some frequencies still get through.

Check this page out:
http://www.dangerousdecibels.org/hearingloss.cfm

Posted: Fri Apr 18, 2008 9:10 am

zemlin wrote:

I just discovered that my already not-so-hot HF hearing is getting worse. A year or two ago it was rolling off around 12.5K. Now it's down to about 10-10.5K. I'm 45 and was planning to be doing this recording stuff after I retire, but if my hearing is going to keep getting worse, maybe I'm kidding myself. I wrote off selling mastering services due to my hearing - but is it going to get to the point where I'm not even qualified for recording and mixing?

Folks like my work, and since I know my limits, I sometimes call in younger ears for a second opinion. Luckily my younger daughter has good ears for analytical listening. I find it worrisome that my ears are getting significantly worse in a fairly short time - and I use hearing protection whenever I'm doing noisy things and certainly don't blast music when listening.

Sad

I like this business - I'd hate to be forced out due to bad hearing.

I think it’s safe to say that we’re -all- in this same boat. But I thought I’d throw in a couple tidbits.

My hearing has been permanently damaged by two main sources: The drummer I’ve worked with for the last 16 years or so and one minor incident at a crappy bar on the south side of Chicago.

The drummer I’ve been working with hits VERY hard, he’s definitely a power player, and standing next to him has damaged the hearing of every bass player he knows. He used to take pride in this, until he got a taste of his own medicine (more about this below). Nowadays, when I’m around him I’ve got in-ears or earplugs in, it’s a requirement for me to protect what I’ve got left. In 2005, I moved out to a more rural setting and took a bit of a break from the music “business”. Not that I was all that deep into it to begin with, but being two hours away from everything and really trying to settle down and do the family thing took precedence over anything else for a while. At first, I couldn’t go to bed at night without a television, music, -something- making noise. I’m used to living near highways, high traffic areas, guns going off, police sirens, hillbillies’ dogs barking all night, and out here it’s DEAD silence. It’s so quiet, it’s almost like sensory deprivation, and with my level of hearing damage all I hear is a light ringing with a lot of very high frequency hiss. In such a silent area, the ringing and hiss seem magnified to the point of distraction. Now, after about three years it’s not as noticeable to me; either I’ve gotten used to it or my hearing has adjusted to not being punished so often anymore. I tend to think it’s a little of column A and a little of column B. When I go back to my hometown and work with friends on music, my ears fatigue much sooner now, they’re much more sensitive, and I’m much more aware of how much is “pushing it”.

The incident I mentioned was while running sound for our little tribute band at a dive bar called Changes. Low drop ceilings, tile floors, and wood paneled walls made this a -punishing- room for highs and hi-mids. It seemed like everything wanted to make the PA feedback, so I had to really stay on top of it the whole night, no amount of ringing out the PA would solve the problem. At one point, the guitarist was setting up his rig and had gotten an ear-splitting burst of feedback because of his wah pedal. I thought it was the PA and ran up to the stage to kill the monitors, which happened to be right next to his amp. As I crouched down to try and figure out the problem, he made it do it again. I didn’t hear out of my left ear for the rest of that night. Since then, it’s -very- sensitive to high frequencies, volume, air pressure differences, you name it. Before that point, I never had pain before from the hearing damage I received, just the tell-tale ring later on in the evening. That night was the beginning of many difficulties I’ve had with my left ear since then. Moral of the story? It’s always the guitar player’s fault. Wink

The drummer I mentioned played a show up on the north side of the city a few years ago. For monitoring purposes, the club had an old PA cabinet with a 15" and a horn positioned right next to the drummer. Being able to hear yourself onstage in Chicago is a super-rare luxury, but apparently this PA cabinet had a blown horn. By the third song, the drummer couldn’t stand the noise anymore and had the soundman kill the monitor altogether, but the damage was done. He suffered a serious loss of hearing, had troubles with pain and vertigo for weeks afterwards, sought the advice of at least three different doctors, tried homeopathic remedies, and even looked into hyperbaric chamber therapy somewhere in Canada. He wears an earplug in that ear all of the time now, (although not pushed in all of the way) merely because it is overly sensitive to loud noises. He swears by these homeopathic anti-tinnitus eardrops he picked up somewhere, and the ringing and vertigo have dissipated to the point of tolerance.

So, basically you’ve got two people who have suffered some pretty serious hearing damage who have had our conditions improve within three years. Our hearing will degrade faster than most people’s, and we’ll never hear things the same way we used to, but hearing damage isn’t a death sentence. The body has remarkable healing abilities, combined with a remarkable ability to adapt to new situations. Take care of your hearing, ALWAYS have earplugs with you when you’re going to be around loud noises, take breaks when you’re wearing headphones or working on music for long periods of time, don’t crank your iPod with in-ears in, get a pair of closed-ear headphones if background noise is a problem (the Bose noise cancelling headphones are awesome for this), and above all, be aware and observant when it comes to your hearing. If you feel your ears getting fatigued, if you know they’re going to be ringing later, if you know the volume level is pretty high, get out, take a break, put some earplugs in, -do something proactive-.

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