Pretty soon everyone on the planet will have an iPod. My buddy John Hawbaker of Clarity (part of Plantronics) pointed out this study to me. It’s probably a good thing to read for iPod owners. I have significant hearing loss in one ear (not because of an iPod), and it’s a pain in the ass, so I’d like to help people avoid hearing loss if possible.
“Sound Output Levels of the iPod and Other MP3 Players: Is There Potential Risk to Hearing?”
Cory D.F. Portnuff
Au.D., Ph.D. Candidate
Speech, Language and Hearing Sciences Dept
University of Colorado
Brian J. Fligor, Sc.D.
Director of Diagnostic Audiology, Children’s Hospital Boston
Instructor in Otology and Laryngology, Harvard Medical School
This has been getting more attention lately, as more people use MP3 players on a regular basis. I’ve heard that Apple conducted its own research (hiring audiologists and what not) and that these results were scary enough to prompt them to develop the volume limiter feature for the iPods. Everyone in my household has an iPod, so I’ve turned on the limiter for all of us (at 75% or so) and I make sure no one is rocking out too hard.
What isn’t getting much attention is the use of MP3 players while driving or riding. I ride motorcycles, and love to have the iPod on to soften the road noise and increase my enjoyment. There is a risk to doing this (and it is illegal in some states), and I wonder whether the TSA will start tracking this as contributors to accidents.
Click here to see a solution.
Custom fit earbuds. Most of us think if we push the ipod earbuds deeper into our ears we can hear better, but that’s a misconception.
Most audiologists can fit someone for ipod earbuds at a cost of $45 each. The sound is delivered to the ear in a way that’s clearer without having to jack up the volume. To me, that’s a small price to pay to save my hearing.
What?
Y’know, I’ve been hearing this stuff since the walkman days. I don’t think a significant number of people have lost hearing because of headphone use. Sure there will be the 0.01% of the population that are stupid enough to overdo it, but Darwin is going to claim them anyway.
I agree with Xtabber on unsafe use of portable devices. It doesn’t even need to have headphones to increase risk. Every night there are a few people on the same road doing a ballet between the lines of the road as they read their blackberry or treo.
Soon Tommy will be the national anthem.
if my memory serves me correctly Apple had to “de-tune” the iPod for sale in France due these very same concerns
regards
pumper
Haven’t we all suffered those fellow passengers on the crowded London tube/ Boston T/ Washington Metro etc who are listening to the music so loudly that given the tinny noise and the thump, we really needn’t bother with carrying any music with us? I think they are already losing their hearing and aren’t aware of it at all. Pity they aren’t likely to read these researches either..
I also sometimes wonder why increasingly more and more people are stuffing their ears with noise. Are they scared of the sound of silence caused by their own (lack of) thoughts or reflections?
Thanks for the informative post Guy.
The image in your post is remarkably similar to the China flag. Any ties there?
:-)
Wasn’t this already discussed when the “Walkmans” were becoming a rage?
I think Pete Townshend (The Who) attributes his hearing problems not to extremely loud concerts, but wearing headphones in the studio …
I know this wasn’t the point of your post, but I’m going to take exception to your assertion that “pretty soon everyone on the planet will have an iPod.” Need I you that a huge percentage of the world’s population lives on less than $1 a day? It would take a lot of hungry days for most of the world to afford an iPod. Personally, I use noise-cancelling headphones with my iPod to drown out the cries of despair.
So, what happened to common sense? While the earbud solution prompted by Jenny looks funky, it seems to me it’s like ordering a double-cheese burger, a large fries and a diet Coke.
Why would I buy an iPod when I can get a more useful Smartphone or Pocket PC and subscribe to Mercora M? Convergence devices are a thing of the past! ;)
Mercora M
http://www.mercora.com/m/
People deaf to common sense deserve to become deaf to their pumped-at-maximum-volume iPods.
Every morning on the train I see someone with their ipod blaring so loud that I can hear the song they are listening to. I love my ipod, as do my kids, but we have a rule: If I can hear the song, then it’s too loud.
“Personally, I use noise-canceling headphones with my iPod to drown out the cries of despair.” – Ok, for some reason that is funny!
“Wasn’t this already discussed when the “Walkmans” were becoming a rage?” – YES! Thank you!
Loud stuff for extended periods is bad for hearing – we know this as well as knowing that we shouldn’t drink and drive, however, there are some who CHOOSE not to heed such warnings – and NO, I’m not saying that losing your hearing is just like running over and killing a mother of three while in a drunken stupor behind the wheel. I guess my point is: WHY THE HECK IS THIS ‘UP TO THE MINUTE’ NEWS?!?!
So, if you have significant hearing loss, does that mean the MP3 player is out for you? What if you have to listen to your volume above 60% just to hear at a ‘normal’ level?
What volume do they suggest for drowning out the teenage girl on the bus at 6am regaling her friends about the previous nights escapades with every other word being ‘like’ at a level designed to make you WISH you had hearing loss?
(really I’m not that angry, I just find ‘news’ such as this to be a complete waste of time. The ones who don’t know that their ipod at 100% volume is destroying their hearing, likely aren’t reading the news…)
I agree. You should invest in Belltone now because when the iPod generation retires, the hearing aid business is going to be booming!
The last table in the article is misleading, and I worry that people will draw the wrong conclusions. It suggests that isolator earphone are more dangerous than earbuds (50 minutes safe listening duration vs. 90 minutes at 80% volume). Isolator headphone sit deeper in the ear, which means at a given volume, the sound pressure at the ear is higher.
However, this misstates the cause of iPod-related hearing loss. The position of the volume knob is not the problem; rather, it is the fact that portable mp3 players enable people to listen to music outside for extended periods, where people crank up the volume to drown out street and wind noise.
Isolator headphones are much safer because they help block out ambient noise, enabling people to listen at much lower volume levels.
This is a huge problem, and the only solutions are (a) don’t listen to your iPod outside, or (b) spend the $200 on true noise isolation earbuds.
Etymotic ER-6is are $90 at Amazon these days. When wearing them and working (I’m a grad student, working ~12 hrs on the computer with these on in a coffee shop), I end up gradually turning the music down during the day. Often down to ~5px of volume on the iPod volume control.
Definitely worth the money in 2 ways:
1. My ears don’t ring anymore!
2. I kept buying new earbuds all the time, as I kept blowing them out.
Hey, a minimum of bass is needed to listen to some decent electronic music :-)
MP3 players and headphones
Referenced from Guy Kawasakis blog.
I personally spend significant amount of time on my Ipod and my E3C headphones. Naturally, its been quite disconcerting to see increasing anecdotal evidence of earbuds induced hearing loss. Fortunately…
Everyone should protect their hearing, doesn’t matter if you’re totally deaf like me.
Thankfully, I don’t use iPods :)
Ernie really does make a great point. This entire conversation is a repeat of the buzz when the Sony Walkman hit the market. I was in my teens at the time and can tell you I had the Scorpions and Van Halen a blazin’!
The level of volume I could reach was pretty awesome, but still didn’t come close to going to a rock concert.
I utilize earbuds today at a moderate level… the advantage not being volume but quality and noise reduction.
If something like this gains traction, someday they won’t be able to sell sharp knives for fear of someone cutting themselves. It’s so ridiculous! What ever happened to personal accountability?
Lally and Michael raise good points. It’s more about the associated earphone technology than the increased usage of mp3 players.
Shure is the other major player and have a similar set of buds on offer. Bose recently entered with their heavily marketed triports.
It’s a long shot, but if the hearing loss issue end up getting a lot of publicity, Apple might start offering a package with the Bose phones – they’ve had a couple of joint ventures already.
Oh yes! iPod is creating a deaf gen X! The irony is that the success of deafening iPod can largely be measured by profit rise of hearing aid makers – More here
I wrote about the inadequacies of the iPod volume control limiter and discussed Fligor’s research a post from March of ’06:
http://brentblog.typepad.com/brentblog/2006/03/the_science_of_.html
A much better discussion of this research was written by Fligor himself in The Hearing Review, and his article can be found here:
http://www.hearingreview.com/Articles.ASP?articleid=H0603F08
I haven’t tried iHearSafe earbuds, but they are designed to keep sound levels at an OSHA-defined safe level:
http://ingemicorp.com/ihearsafe.html
I agree with a previous poster, insert earphones like Etymotic’s ER6i’s allow you to set your iPod’s volume at a lower and safer level because they lower the surrounding noise around you by over 20 dB (particularly useful on a plane–I can vouch for them protecting my hearing on BART).
iPods, Amish abuse, and sketchy journalism
The stories are heartbreaking. You feel for the victims. It’s hard to imagine what they’ve been through. But at the same time, a 20/20 piece on Amish abuse from a few years back points to the generalizations that many journalists