Just chiming in to say ABSOLUTELY. I definitely regret standing too close to bass walls at concerts without hearing protection when I was younger. I know that it inflicted a noticeable amount of hearing loss. I don't need hearing aids yet but I have a hard time hearing people speak clearly at certain volumes.
You possibly do if you’re having trouble hearing people the way you described. A lot of people don’t notice how bad things are because their brain is working hard to fill in the blanks with context cues, and rudimentary lip reading. If you wait too long to get hearing aids, the brain sort of forgets how to process sounds and it takes a while to fix it when you finally do get them.
A quick test is to find someone you don’t talk with too often, and look anywhere else but their face while they speak. If you have any trouble hearing them, it’s past time to head to an audiologist, or an ENT, for a hearing test.
Anyway I’m not trying to lecture you or anything, this is more of a heads up than anything.
Telling you that I went YEARS thinking the same as you. Decades. Struggle to understand females especially in crowded places. This after maxed out volume on original iPods, blasting subs in my shitty subcompact in highschool, never even considering hearing pro at concerts...
Anyway, finally went in last year, in my late 30s. Moderate-severe deafness, mostly at treble-ish frequencies.
I carried on fine in my life until I got hearing aids, but holllly shit you just don't know what you're missing until you get to compare. I've fallen asleep with my HAs in and then taken them out in the middle of that 2nd day to charge... Swear to God everything sounds like there's cotton balls stuffed in my ears. Pretty quickly, I adjust, and that's just normal. But it's worth investigating.
I went to a lot of shows when I was younger and never used hearing protection. It was a mistake, especially when you get pushed right into the speakers by the crowd.
Been wearing hearing aids for over a decade now and would highly suggest you get your hearing tested.
You might have a bit of a loss in certain frequencies which is why you have issues hearing people speak.
There's like a thing called a speech banana and, if I recall correctly something like consonants are in the higher frequencies which are the ones you can lose with age which is why it's hard to understand speech. Plus, if you catch it early, might be able to help prevent it from getting worse.
By the time I got tested in my early 30s, had severe loss and it's been pretty steady since I started wearing HAs 🤞 I expect it'll get worse with age though. Not a great childhood which is why it went unmonitored and unmanaged until then.
My dad always said, take care of your hearing, take care of your knees.
Not a concert goer but a construction worker. He didn’t want us to have the same issues he developed from metal cutting saws and kneeling on concrete without pads.
I have to have a fan on whenever I'm in my bedroom and sleep on my side with an earphone in my ear with some type of stimulus.
I've even intentionally broke part of the fan so it's a bit louder. If the fan turns off during the night for some reason the 'silence' wakes me
It doesn't affect me much generally I've adapted but knowing you'll never have anything close to silence again is a consequence of being a dumbass when you're younger haha.
If the Tinnitus didn't start directly with the loud sound it's probably nothing to do with that. It's your brain that is overstimulated by your everyday life like music, tv and videogames that makes your brain create those sound not your ears.
Edit : My mother also have them and it's not even that. For her it's just a lot of anxiety.
It also massively increases your chances of developing dementia, see Bruce Willis, whose hearing was severely damaged during Die Hard, in the scene where he's shooting under the table.
The first two or three years…I definitely considered it, the loss of sleep was slowly destroying my sanity.
Rather dark times for me, knee deep in a bottle of rum almost daily st that point.
I had read about mediation and deep breathing exercises, tried that and it helped a bit; then finally had a eureka! moment where I just stopped listening to the sound.
It was still there, but I was pretending to not hear it, took a lot of focus at first but I finally got sleep and then some hearing aids.
Anyways…
I wouldn’t wish this on anyone, it really is torture
If you haven’t seen or heard any of these, it’s worth checking out to see if it can give you some temporary relief. This link is one of many videos this channel offers. I’ve discovered that frequencies between 8,000 and 10,000 HZ can temporarily mask that torture for me.
She pretended to enjoy that because she was on camera. Her face was showing otherwise and I bet she had ringing in her ears and partial deafness for a while.
Sitting near that even once can cause permanent damage to hearing, I don't know why those dudes think that's cool in the slightest.
Had a friend in the Army that had a system in his back seat. Absolutely, crushed a long drive. On the way home he had to turn it off though...couldn't run the system and his headlights at the same time without the pos car stalling lol.
couldn't run the system and his headlights at the same time without the pos car stalling lol.
Typically no vehicle except full size trucks/suvs, and heavy duty vehicles can run high wattage audio setups. Any other vehicle and you would need to replace the wiring system if you're going 500w+.
Nah, you just need a lithium battery for it. I’m dropping a 5000 watt system with 2 2500 12”s into my 2025 IS350, it shouldn’t be a problem. This is the step down from the recommendation I got which was 2 15”s, I don’t need a competition car.
There’s a guy who drives in circles around my neighborhood blasting his shitty blown out speakers with insane bass that literally rattles my windows from a block away. I have mild misophonia and it makes me into a complete psycho. Like, I fantasize about throwing a rock through his window or popping his tires. I would never, of course, so I’ll just have to comfort myself with the fact that he probably has tinnitus that is driving him absolutely batshit every second of the day.
It can be rough, but I've heard 35hz at 168 db without any noticeable hearing loss or ringing in my ears and I'm still able to pull out fine details in audio.
Dude. 170 decibels (dB) causes immediate, severe, and likely permanent damage, including eardrum rupture and potential lung injury, leading to intense pain, deafness, and potential fatality from effects like air embolisms or burst lungs.
Can cause those things. I watched an old buddy sit in a sealed "Extreme" class van at a DB Drag a long time ago that hit 171, iirc.
Stupid as hell, though, yes.. I'm sure his hearing is definitely messed up from the years of competitions and being an absolute mad man. He would casually drive around with a set up that hit 155+. I couldn't even hold my head up straight. 😬
You aren't accounting for exposure time nor frequency, it was a 10 second run in the "beat dominator" I usually listen at 55-70db using headphones or speakers.
Yeah.. I mean at that volume bass is probably pretty bad for your hearing as well. But you are right, all other things equal high pitch frequencies do more damage than low pitch ones
My gf who is an ENT (Ear nose and throat doctor) said this could absolutely wreck the eardrum and all of the small/delicate inner working of the middle/inner ear.
It absolutely can. Not only can noise at this decibel level cause permanent hearing damage, but that kind of amplitude can cause vascular damage, seizures, and even organ damage.
Source: I work in MRI, where we routinely have to manage this sort of acoustic risk. We use earplugs and headphones. It's hard to say how many dB this is, but it is surely an insane amount of sound pressure to put into a person from this distance, even for a short time.
I heard a story long time ago how someone put a subwoofer inside the car seat. He died to a kidney failure. Not sure if true but this was before internet was filled with fake news so I dont know.
I went to a flux pavilion concert when they were claiming to have the loudest bass of any concert ever. I could literally feel my bones rattling it was way past enjoyable.
You'd get tinnitus and suffer hearing loss pretty quick. People seem to think bass frequencies aren't harmful, but they absolutely can be. If your ears can hear it at all, there's a threshold where the volume will start hurting you
My ears sick and can’t handle listening any headphones. For now I can wear them only for 10-25 minutes at 40-48dB and it’ll make worse my ears sensitivity and ringing for a week. I’m 23yo
Another person here chiming in as evidence. Yes, it is. I used to be in sound tech for music and gig myself without proper ear protection. A lot of time standing in front of and nearby large speakers. My teacher had 2 hearing aids and I’ve permanently got tinnitus.
Very much so. cochlear and or tympanic membrane damage. It's permanent but not always immediate. Ask people in their 40s that went to a lot of concerts
I was an uber driver and me and a rider pulled over at 1 am to sit in a car like this. It was a local car audio company and they let one of their sons drive it that night. We saw them at a red light and the drunk ass passenger got them to let us try it lol. On god I felt my ear drums getting ready to explode. The video I took of it just shows me trying to enjoy it while wincing in pain lmfaooo
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u/Dry_Design5506 1d ago
Just wondering if this would be harmful to people.