Hey guys,

you may think i am being stupid asking this quesion but i have upgraded my sytem - put splits up front and new amp and sub.

i used to be able to put the volume to 35 which is max on alpine. now at 25 after about 2 mins my ears start to block up. You know like air pressure but from the volume. Any of you experince this, just out of curioustiy.

Cheers - sorry if i sound like a d**k posting this but i was just wondering.

so you're asking if loud music affects your hearing?

now Fraser - there's such thing as a stupid question, just stupid people! (Ahh I love SouthPark) lol .. anyway. Yes exposure to loud noises over an extended period of time can and does have a permanent affect on your hearing ability.

right then...22 is my new max. now instead do you think lwering the gains would allow for increased sound quality so i just crack it to full volume however its lower because the gains are lower.

Cheers

there was an article in the paper the other day saying that 3 in every 4 people of about my age will be deaf due to the loud music at clubs and listening to MP3 players too loud. freaky.

i figured that out when i started clubbing...its really bad, especially one place that i go to but don't like but because mates like it. the treble is just so loud it hurts after about 20 mins and then i have to go outside or in the more quiet area.

Yes I read that in my local paper as well. A lot of the folks who enjoy very loud music such as doof doof, whether in cars or in clubs, will start to experience problems with their hearing by the age of 30. You'll notice that most folks in the audio industry like musicians and audio techs all wear ear protection when working with music - these people are smart. The listeners on the other hand listen to stuff well above acceptable levels and by the time the music hits about 85dB and beyond, their hearing starts to suffer and down the track they may end up with tinnitus which is where they can hear ringing, whistling and other perceived noises in their ears which has in many cases become permanent for them. An awful way to live for the rest of your life to have permanent loud noises in your ears...

Already got tinnitus, the joys of being a DJ.

I've been to the odd concert with ear plugs - I don't care if someone sees em (its dark usually anyway) and you can still hear everything played - just alot easier on your ears!!! When you go outside I always hear a lot of people saying how loud it was and their ears hurt.

when i used to work in pubs i never wore ear-plugs initially, but after a few months i decided to - F**k it makes a difference i was wearing them when i went in drinking from then, and still do on occasion - and my hearing was a lot better because of it!

Yeah seriously, dont damage your ears. My dad spent his lifetime driving trucks, and his ears are destroyed. Constant tinitus, and while its bad for the person who has it, its almost as bad for everyone else. Sucks big time.

When I was about 20 or so I was doing some roadie work and the lighting for a friend's band and spent quite a bit of time in the pubs where they had residency. It was always loud and it was always a welcome relief when I stepped outside. It was at that time that I learnt of the dangers of excessive loudness after watching my mates in their band put in ear plugs before they played - they never performed without them. I read up about hearing loss and of tinnitus and similar damage and pretty much stopped listening to excessively loud music in an effort to keep my hearing normal. I think doing that has helped me enormously in my later career as a TV tech as traditional TV's were all designed to run at about 16KHz which I could actually hear in the background whenever they were turned on. This was vital to hear if the TV was running properly and helped in the fault diagnosis of many units. Had I continued listening to very loud music then my ability to hear high frequencies would have been eroded as the years rolled by because this is a primary area lost when hearing starts to fail. If you've ever wondered why old folks have the volume turned up on their TV's and radios, it's because the high frequency component of their hearing is gone and all they can hear are the bassy lower and deeper frequencies which means to hear them they have to turn the volume up.
To this day I still retain excellent hearing at high frequencies and I believe I can thank myself for that bit of forethought when I was younger.

you reckon hearing can repair itself

the term 'permanent damage' comes 2 mind...nah the loud blasting on your ears has lifelong consequences, fun eh, but were all gonna go deaf anyway, so why not have fun doing it ? ... Longlive 130dB of music hehe

In most cases, no.