Hearing Loss Danger - High vs. Low Frequencies?

[Bass Music]

Sweet man deffinately needed! For the standard amazon ones how much does it affect the sound?

in my experience (especially on large systems) the sound is pretty much the same, just not at a volume that will cause ear fatigue. I have also found they get rid of the distortion you might hear when listening to really high volumes. For me it's a much better listening experience as you can hear everything fine without your ears suffering and you still get to feel the bass

[Dub Pilgrim]

you still get to feel the bass

What its all about

[herbalicious]

I feel some kind of ear plug guide should be supplied on the forum. I don't have them...coz I always forget....but everyone always tells me I should get them...

The need should be promoted more.

[ashley]

I love my custom made ear plugs.

Never knew my ears were such different shapes....

[Bass Music]

I feel some kind of ear plug guide should be supplied on the forum. I don't have them...coz I always forget....but everyone always tells me I should get them...

The need should be promoted more.

I'm up for contributing! dunno which section it would go in though

[vindian]

Just recently tryin' to understand some of this stuff, so I'll tell you straight out that all of this might be wrong (if so, I invite one of the more knowledgeable cats to make rude corrections as necessary)

BUT the way I've been understanding it, high frequency sound waves have a much higher energy content than their low freq counterparts, and so they can propagate further and do more damage to our ears. So at louder volumes, the high energy content is extra lethal to us because the energy dissipates IN OUR EAR and wrecks the little hair cells in there. Probably worth mentioning that we have a nonlinear perception of loudness (look up the 'Fletcher-Munson Loudness Curves'); at low dB-SPL our ears are most sensitive to sounds in the ~1kHz --> ~6kHz band, pretty much what Killawatt was saying. As you turn up the volume, the nonlinearity disappears but by then you're already in the 80+ dB-SPL range, which can cause hearing loss. When you're at that volume level, the bassy frequencies can wreck your ears too, but due to the aforementioned human treble sensitivity you won't notice the bass damage as much. Apparently it's more dangerous on headphones where your ears are right next to the transducer, but I can't imagine that dangerous audio content gets very well absorbed by the air in a club setting either, hahah.

was just going through this article yesterday, more geared towards headphones but some of you might find it useful: http://gilmore2.chem.northwestern.edu/a ... ng_art.htm

Definitely up for learning more about ear plugs too, gotta preserve hearing!

[jackquinox]

Just recently tryin' to understand some of this stuff, so I'll tell you straight out that all of this might be wrong (if so, I invite one of the more knowledgeable cats to make rude corrections as necessary)

BUT the way I've been understanding it, high frequency sound waves have a much higher energy content than their low freq counterparts, and so they can propagate further and do more damage to our ears. So at louder volumes, the high energy content is extra lethal to us because the energy dissipates IN OUR EAR and wrecks the little hair cells in there. Probably worth mentioning that we have a nonlinear perception of loudness (look up the 'Fletcher-Munson Loudness Curves'); at low dB-SPL our ears are most sensitive to sounds in the ~1kHz --> ~6kHz band, pretty much what Killawatt was saying. As you turn up the volume, the nonlinearity disappears but by then you're already in the 80+ dB-SPL range, which can cause hearing loss. When you're at that volume level, the bassy frequencies can wreck your ears too, but due to the aforementioned human treble sensitivity you won't notice the bass damage as much. Apparently it's more dangerous on headphones where your ears are right next to the transducer, but I can't imagine that dangerous audio content gets very well absorbed by the air in a club setting either, hahah.

was just going through this article yesterday, more geared towards headphones but some of you might find it useful: http://gilmore2.chem.northwestern.edu/a ... ng_art.htm

Definitely up for learning more about ear plugs too, gotta preserve hearing!

Lower frequency waves propogate further as they are longer but in saying that if you stood infront a system and its pounding out with a sound pressure of 100 dB, high frequency waves will have the same amount of acoustic power as low frequency waves giving them the effect of having a higher energy content, the problem with our ears is that the hair cells within the inner ear towards the front of the cochlea are responsive to high frequencies and the hair cells further in the tube are the lower frequencies hence high frequencies take a battering and push us towards a temporary threshold shift (the more of these you have the more your hearing deteriates), our ears use the acoustic reflex naturally when sounds are to loud, when the ear drum stretches to impede sound waves transmitting through the middle ear, this doesnt kick in for a while though which is why when you listen to loud music for a bit you will gradually keep turning it up because you think its quiter (at least i always do this) I seriously recommend if anyone has any interest in this subject they should study it as there is a massive shortage of acousticians and audiologist in the UK but im sure the same goes for most places in the world.

[Shoelessnyc]

thanks killawatts> great info.

[Omega Dub]

tons of great info here, and +1 for everyone recommending earplugs
they are essential and it sucks that so many fans/djs/producers don't take this stuff seriously till it's too late.

but i'm still hoping for a definitive answer to the question about low frequencies being less or equally likely to cause hearing damage...? cuz it really seems like even the best earplugs don't do anything to block low bass.

[jackquinox]

Sound first reaches the outer part of the ear (pinna and concha) due to the shape of the folds of your outer ear longer lower frequency wavelengths tend to be scattered whilst shorter higher frequency wave lengths are focused to the auditory canal. Due to the size of the average humans auditory canal being roughly 2.5-3cm long the resonant frequency is around 3kHz (around the same as speech). The acoustic reflex of the eardrum usually kicks in after 90dB as mentioned in an earlier post but this is not immediate so if your exposed to a 150dB explosion of low frequency noise your hearing is gone, if you walk into a banging club with 105dB bouncing out the system your eardrum will tighten to impeede the transmission of the high noise level but this will take a few minutes after some initial damage has taken place, best thing to do, same as an athlete is warm up your ears.

The facts are that exposure to high levels of noise of any frequency will not do your hearing any good, but due to the resonance of the auditory canal at 3kHz you may as well turn that frequency band up to 11 on the amp whilst listening to loud music in a club as it will be doing that bit more damage, we dont notice low frequency hearing loss as much as high frequency hearing loss as we just dont use it as much to communicate but it does and can happen. It should also be noted that the threshold of hearing in lower frequencies is not the same as between say 250 Hz and 4kHz, as someone said before check out the equal loudness curves by fletcher and munson and you will see how high a sound pressure level has to be in order to perceive a 16 Hz tone.

The danger of high frequency noise loss is that you will continually have to say pardon to everyone but you can get low frequency noise tinnitus which is just as annoying.... hope this helps.

[skotyb]

This is also a concern for determining a safe monitoring level in the studio. Because of those loud, low sine waves, I'm finding that when I use a db meter in the studio to set an average monitoring level around 85db, it just seems too quiet with dubstep - but with other, less sub-heavy types of music (rock, jazz, etc.) 85 seems adequate.

I also find this to be a problem. It's a bitch.

[gen_]

1khz and 4khz are regarded as the most dangerous frequency areas to the human ear. The ear amplifies the 4khz area the most (due to evolutionary factors e.g. babies crying) so be careful around that but 1khz is considered to be the most physically damaging frequency to the ear. if you set up a pure sine wave on logic, cubase etc., filter all frequencies either side of 950hz and 1050hz and turn up to a reasonable level (not too loud tho), you'll be able to feel the effect it has on your ear very strongly.

This is a general rule but everyones ears are different so you can test which frequency is most painful for you by just sweeping up and down on the filter or EQ.

Try this again with decent ear plugs in and you'll definately appreciate what they do much more!

Pretty much says it all except for the fact that the 1k to 2k area resonates with your eardrum hence the sensitivity. We all have slightly different sized drums which is why its a range and not a precise frequency.

[Omega Dub]

Sound first reaches the outer part of the ear (pinna and concha) due to the shape of the folds of your outer ear longer lower frequency wavelengths tend to be scattered whilst shorter higher frequency wave lengths are focused to the auditory canal. Due to the size of the average humans auditory canal being roughly 2.5-3cm long the resonant frequency is around 3kHz (around the same as speech). The acoustic reflex of the eardrum usually kicks in after 90dB as mentioned in an earlier post but this is not immediate so if your exposed to a 150dB explosion of low frequency noise your hearing is gone, if you walk into a banging club with 105dB bouncing out the system your eardrum will tighten to impeede the transmission of the high noise level but this will take a few minutes after some initial damage has taken place, best thing to do, same as an athlete is warm up your ears.

The facts are that exposure to high levels of noise of any frequency will not do your hearing any good, but due to the resonance of the auditory canal at 3kHz you may as well turn that frequency band up to 11 on the amp whilst listening to loud music in a club as it will be doing that bit more damage, we dont notice low frequency hearing loss as much as high frequency hearing loss as we just dont use it as much to communicate but it does and can happen. It should also be noted that the threshold of hearing in lower frequencies is not the same as between say 250 Hz and 4kHz, as someone said before check out the equal loudness curves by fletcher and munson and you will see how high a sound pressure level has to be in order to perceive a 16 Hz tone.

The danger of high frequency noise loss is that you will continually have to say pardon to everyone but you can get low frequency noise tinnitus which is just as annoying.... hope this helps.

this was very helpful, thanks a lot!!

[decklyn]

At the same SPL high freqs are defo worse but mind that you're often exposed to super high spl on the bass frequencies at jams.
Your perception of bass is much different too.

here:

http://www.avforums.com/forums/subwoofe ... noise.html

[hugh]

E = hf (energy = plancks constant x frequency)
more f = more E.
More E = more ear pain.

[Omega Dub]

At the same SPL high freqs are defo worse but mind that you're often exposed to super high spl on the bass frequencies at jams.
Your perception of bass is much different too.

here:

http://www.avforums.com/forums/subwoofe ... noise.html

great info on that thread, thanks for the link!!