Ringing in ears.
- Thread starter kaffe
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Associate
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Just try not to concentrate on it mate, it gets easier to deal with after a while. Mine used to drive me up the wall trying to sleep. Have you tried having music on in the background very quietly? That seemed to help mine a bit, in complete silence it'd ramp up to damn noisy in a matter of seconds.
@Above - sucks dunnit. I've always had it but it got much worse after someone put the wrong settings on a soundboard. Blew the speakers out and deafened me and my mate (who were right next to them) for a good while after in one ear.
We have an alarm go off every week as a test and it's clucking loud. Sometimes if you are unlucky you are walking under one of them round the site as it chirps a few times. I'm tempted to complain about it to be honest on Health and safety grounds. What does the law say about testing alarms?
My dad has it, and man I couldn't deal with that crap. I never play my music loud. What other people perceive as normal volume drives me insane, I guess my ears just adapted and amplified the volume artificially or something.
Try my best to avoid loud noises too.
Try my best to avoid loud noises too.
No idea about the laws, but they're ridiculously loud and I'd say definitely unsafe for the ears.
The one that did it for me was a cone shaped thing on a big metal stand, complete with orange flashing light on top. Construction site alarm or something, deafened me anyway.
Man of Honour
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I've got ears of steel and just got in from one of my own gigs.
I've got 3 Marshalls behind me and a drummer, 3 monitors in front of me and in-ear monitors turned up louder than all that lot and I have no problems.
I've got 3 Marshalls behind me and a drummer, 3 monitors in front of me and in-ear monitors turned up louder than all that lot and I have no problems.
Associate
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Being a drummer here, only 19 and suffering somewhat from tinnitus, I now longer play, or go to gigs without putting my musician's earplugs in. It's just not worth it in the long run.
That, or during all those years you've ****** your ears up and don't know it, it may not annoy you but it doesn't mean it had stopped doing damage.
Just a possibility, it's what many people don't realise, just because it isn't loud to you or you can't really hear it, does not mean it will not cause damage.
Soldato
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I did a IOSH Health & Safety course through work a while back and after that I've taken great care with my hearing.
We got told to think of the inside of your ears like a cornfield, as the sound waves pass over them they sway and feed this information to your brain.
When you go to a club it's that loud they get knocked down and lay flat, gradually most of them get back up again but not always, some just stay flat forever. Keep repeating this and your talking long term damage.
I know someone with Tinnitus and he says it's bloody awful.
Whenever I'm doing diy now, first thing to go on is safety glasses and any drilling etc ear defenders.
We got told to think of the inside of your ears like a cornfield, as the sound waves pass over them they sway and feed this information to your brain.
When you go to a club it's that loud they get knocked down and lay flat, gradually most of them get back up again but not always, some just stay flat forever. Keep repeating this and your talking long term damage.
I know someone with Tinnitus and he says it's bloody awful.
Whenever I'm doing diy now, first thing to go on is safety glasses and any drilling etc ear defenders.
The hearing system is bizarrely complex when compared to a microphone. When we learnt about it as induction for our audio tech course I couldn't help wondering why it was like it is, the only advantage held over a microphone is better response to very quiet sounds.
Anyhow, the post above is correct, the hair cells are like a field of grasses and as the pressure wave passes over them, conveyed by a fluid in the cochlea, it can be strong enough to bend/snap them. My assumption is that once a hair is broken, it continuously sends out a signal telling you that you are hearing the correspondent frequency, and that this is tinnitus. A brief ringing (subsiding after a few hours/days) is presumably a bent hair, which slowly re-forms.
A loud sound at a certain frequency can damage your hearing at this frequency. The ear is sensitive at around 4kHz due to the shape of the ear canal and damage can more readily occur at this frequency. High frequencies are also easily lost; presumably the hairs for those are finer. Hence, distortion in a speaker system is likely to cause hearing damage much faster than clean output, as distortion is the addition of harmonic content. If you go to clubs/venues, go to those with professionally managed sound systems at least!
Hearing protection is advised for any exposure over 85dB, though as you get louder, you can withstand shorter and shorter periods without damage. Once you get to 110dB, you are dealing in seconds before damage can be caused.
Take care of your ears!
Anyhow, the post above is correct, the hair cells are like a field of grasses and as the pressure wave passes over them, conveyed by a fluid in the cochlea, it can be strong enough to bend/snap them. My assumption is that once a hair is broken, it continuously sends out a signal telling you that you are hearing the correspondent frequency, and that this is tinnitus. A brief ringing (subsiding after a few hours/days) is presumably a bent hair, which slowly re-forms.
A loud sound at a certain frequency can damage your hearing at this frequency. The ear is sensitive at around 4kHz due to the shape of the ear canal and damage can more readily occur at this frequency. High frequencies are also easily lost; presumably the hairs for those are finer. Hence, distortion in a speaker system is likely to cause hearing damage much faster than clean output, as distortion is the addition of harmonic content. If you go to clubs/venues, go to those with professionally managed sound systems at least!
Hearing protection is advised for any exposure over 85dB, though as you get louder, you can withstand shorter and shorter periods without damage. Once you get to 110dB, you are dealing in seconds before damage can be caused.
Take care of your ears!
Associate
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I had that bad once after going to a concert, my ears were ringing for about 4 days i kid you not.
Annoyed the hell out of me lol
Annoyed the hell out of me lol
Soldato
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I go to dance events where the music is usually really loud. I love my trance, hardstyle, tekno etc etc but I am not gonna act hard and stand right by the speakers with unprotected ears!
We can say whatever we want but we cant defeat Physics. Thats some serious energy hittin ur ear drums if the music is v loud and I would suggest wearin those foam-type defenders. You see all the security staff wearin em and also airport staff who work around loudness. It makes a huge diff. I come home after 9 hours of mayhem and ....no ringing at all.
And interestingly....I see more and more people on the dancefloor wearin em too.
Good quality defenders will let u hear conversation just fine but protect ur ears from the hi-energy sound from the speakers.
Its fine now but you dont wanna hit your 50-60s etc going "WHAT? WHAT WAS THAT YOU SAID AGAIN?"
We can say whatever we want but we cant defeat Physics. Thats some serious energy hittin ur ear drums if the music is v loud and I would suggest wearin those foam-type defenders. You see all the security staff wearin em and also airport staff who work around loudness. It makes a huge diff. I come home after 9 hours of mayhem and ....no ringing at all.
And interestingly....I see more and more people on the dancefloor wearin em too.
Good quality defenders will let u hear conversation just fine but protect ur ears from the hi-energy sound from the speakers.
Its fine now but you dont wanna hit your 50-60s etc going "WHAT? WHAT WAS THAT YOU SAID AGAIN?"
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Man of Honour
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I recently had my ears tested at Specsavers
because I am deaf in my right ear but I have no problems with headphones 
The guy who tested me said 'This is going to be interesting because I know who you are and what you do'.
The results :
1) I've got way above average hearing in my left ear
2) I'm deaf in my right ear at low volumes but when the volume increases it becomes above average hearing (this is due to a misalignment of bones in my ear and it can be corrected by surgery).
3) Because of 2) I have no spatial awareness of where a sound comes from unless it's a very loud sound.
The hearing specialist said he was amazed that playing in bands had no effect on my ears.
The only band that ever hurt my ears were KISS in 1976 because the PA sound was awful & distorted.
Ive had tinnitus and awful hearing from birth, a nice genetic gift from my mothers side of the family.
Fortunately my brain can filter out the ringing until i actively 'listen' for it, some days its 'loud' enough to actually cause me a pain sensation.
Though i didnt damage my ears myself, take heed at what people are saying you REALLY dont want tinnitus.
Fortunately my brain can filter out the ringing until i actively 'listen' for it, some days its 'loud' enough to actually cause me a pain sensation.
Though i didnt damage my ears myself, take heed at what people are saying you REALLY dont want tinnitus.
Associate
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It only takes 15 minutes of exposure to loud noise to result in permanent hearing loss and/or tinnitus. Take it from a deaf lugs; it ain't fun.
Take care of your hearing folks, you'll miss it if you lose it.
Good advice, but generally hearing goes as you age anyway, even if you were someone who never got exposed to loud noises.