Headphones, are they detrimental to health?

something daft already!! · 13 Jun 2019 at 13:13

ninezerofive said:
You should do more research about wireless headphones in particular, if you are worried about the health. There's scientists signing petitions to have the technology regulated. So far everybody makes what they want and that's kind of frightening.

This is just one of many articles about it:

https://www.healthline.com/health-n...eve-the-current-EMF-guidelines-are-inadequate

Mine are BT. If there were issues with Bluetooth, I think we might have heard something due to it's wide usage.

dirtychinchilla · 13 Jun 2019 at 13:27

robfosters said:
Problem is, if you walk around in a haze and not noticing anything, you can actually endanger other people's lives too, and that's not acceptable.

Yeah but this is a minority thing and you could put it down to many factors. I'm not sure headphones are the problem. Some people are oblivious whether they can hear or not. You might also ask them to ban concentrated thinking because that certainly doesn't make people pay attention to their surroundings!

ninezerofive · 13 Jun 2019 at 13:53

something daft already!! said:
Mine are BT. If there were issues with Bluetooth, I think we might have heard something due to it's wide usage.

Yea sure, same as they tell you about fluoride effect on your body.

Psycho Sonny · 13 Jun 2019 at 14:04

sovietspybob said:
Same goes for audio quality, listen to the highest quality you can as things like low bit rate files obviously miss out bits of the audio to save on file size and your ear/brain makes up & fills in the difference so you will actually feel more tired listening to more compressed audio over uncompressed as your ears are working harder.

I'd like to see a citation for this.

Sounds like BS

sovietspybob · 13 Jun 2019 at 14:17

Psycho Sonny said:
I'd like to see a citation for this.

Sounds like BS

Look up listener fatigue, there isn't a huge amount of proper research on the subject that i can find but it seems to be pretty widely accepted in the audio production community.

It's also tied in the with loudness war to some extent but i'd class them as 2 separate things.

Burnsy2023 · 13 Jun 2019 at 15:03

sovietspybob said:
Look up listener fatigue, there isn't a huge amount of proper research on the subject that i can find but it seems to be pretty widely accepted in the audio production community.

Is this the same community that used to spend four figures on monster audio cables?

I'd bet money it's BS. It depends on a misunderstanding of what bitrate means exactly and how codecs work.

ukxenon · 13 Jun 2019 at 15:11

without a headset or ear buds i would have done damage to some people so for me NO

Psycho Sonny · 13 Jun 2019 at 16:14

sovietspybob said:
Look up listener fatigue, there isn't a huge amount of proper research on the subject that i can find but it seems to be pretty widely accepted in the audio production community.

It's also tied in the with loudness war to some extent but i'd class them as 2 separate things.

Listener fatigue is different. I had some bright headphones which I found very fatiguing therefore they weren't enjoyable.

However I don't think I've ever had my ears or brain introduce something that was never present in the media in the first place. That is what I am calling BS on.

The reason why low bit rate is fatiguing is because it's horrible to listen to and you need to concentrate more to hear stuff.

sovietspybob · 13 Jun 2019 at 16:27

Psycho Sonny said:
Listener fatigue is different. I had some bright headphones which I found very fatiguing therefore they weren't enjoyable.

However I don't think I've ever had my ears or brain introduce something that was never present in the media in the first place. That is what I am calling BS on.

The reason why low bit rate is fatiguing is because it's horrible to listen to and you need to concentrate more to hear stuff.

This is the kind of thing i'm thinking of https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FURPQI3VW58

V F · 13 Jun 2019 at 16:43

B@Th*nG said:
Do you mean use PVC cups or was i using PVC cups? Your ears get hot/warmer by covering them with anything to be honest. Now, the damage is done and i won't use headphones anymore. It's not REALLY bad but i don't want it getting any worse.

B@

Well most headphones usually has PVC cups by default which most complain about the heat and sweat. I use the Brainwavz all velour on the Steelseries 840 and the AKG K702 is standard velour. I've never had heat or sweat issues with velour.

Plus I usually have the amp dials between 8 - 9 o'clock.

arc@css · 13 Jun 2019 at 16:45

The only thing I've heard (no pun intended

) about using earphones/headphones is that, in terms of volume and the effect on your ears, it's better overall to use headphones - which is the opposite of which I would have thought.

However, I've no idea what is the lesser evil of the two.

Tephnos · 13 Jun 2019 at 17:08

Short answer: no

Long answer: only if you have the volume set too loud.

Brizzles · 13 Jun 2019 at 17:29

Sadly its too late.

Anything that comes close to your ears will kill you.

why do you think earwigs came from?

nice friendly guys to start with , then the pincers come out

WantoN · 14 Jun 2019 at 00:00

I think I damaged my hearing as a youngun with 'banging' sound systems; I have sporadic bouts of ringing and one ear will hear very poorly for a few minutes.

These days I listen to things quieter, and I find open backed headphones really help. Now that I have a 'manspace' it doesn't bother anyone. Else I use decent IEMs with the volume down.

Hearing is important, and most people listen to things way too loud.

builder22 · 14 Jun 2019 at 00:05

eh?? WHaT>

Lartyconshayo · 14 Jun 2019 at 00:31

V F said:
PVC cups?

2 girls 1 PVC cups

Illusion · 14 Jun 2019 at 07:13

I keep getting an ear infection on one side and my doctor told me there’s a huge rise in this type of thing now and it could potentially be ear phones trapping moisture and bacteria in them.

Otherwise volume levels need to be moderated too as has already been mentioned

V F · 14 Jun 2019 at 07:47

Illusion said:
I keep getting an ear infection on one side and my doctor told me there’s a huge rise in this type of thing now and it could potentially be ear phones trapping moisture and bacteria in them.

Otherwise volume levels need to be moderated too as has already been mentioned

There are also people out there who share in ear headphones. So it's another way to get infections.

iamdjdz · 14 Jun 2019 at 09:04

I have hearing loss in one ear and permanent tinnitus, I've put it down to listening to Walkman and CD player at full chat on the walk to school for 7 years straight. This and clubbing in my late teens/early 20s. So probably listening too loud damages hearing.

Apart from that probably no other issues.

Terminal_Boy · 14 Jun 2019 at 09:10

Hilly said:
Bad for health? Other than the obvious volume issues, then not really.

Bad for mental health? I think so - nothing healthy about having headphones on for the vast majority and not interacting with those around you.

On the contrary, wearing noise cancelling headphones on the Tube during my old daily 2 hour commute was very good for my mental health.