You're too loud!

[molecule93]

Hi, since you bought your Devialet you might have issues with your neighbors, as I do.

The maximum volume I have pushed my 2 Devialet Phantom Gold is 80. Had a small buzz in my ears for a couple of days. Never went above.

Usually, I listen around 55 to 65 for 30 minutes.

And you? How loud? Are your neighbors nice enough to let you fully enjoy?

[Jean-Marie]

When I listen to classical music, which is often, I listen with a level of 102 dB SPL peak.
Most of those records have a 15 to 20 dB dynamic range, which means that I listen to around 80 dB SPL which is fairly loud, but I’m fortunate to be in a detached house with no common wall with anyone.

Jean-Marie

[Pim]

I'm not sure that having a buzz for a couple of days is something you want to get from music. That's what drugs are for.

Even tough I use two 18" subwoofers, I seem to be listening at about 75dB in general with peaks into the 80's. Once in a while I like to rock out and go much louder than that, but I do find that the room starts to have much more of an influence at those levels. I'm not sure how loud that is. When I play loud like that, picking up my phone for a check is the last thing I think of.

My neighbours are very easy going. The ones across the road have outdoor parties all the time and they use a PA system, so I'm not even the loudest in the street.

There's a guy who lives diagonally behind me and in summer, when all the windows are open, he can easily hear my music. He recently told me how much his wife and him enjoy my musical taste. I've invited hime to come and have a proper listen when he has time.

[David A]

In my "misspent youth" around 50 years ago, I went to a live John McLaughlin and the Mahavishnu Orchestra concert one night. The sound was so loud I had ringing in one ear until around midday the next day.

20 years later I found myself working in occupational health and safety and having to learn about noise induced hearing loss amongst many other things. That ringing/buzzing in your ears is a sign that the volume you were listening at is way over the level which, with repeated exposure over time, can cause permanent hearing loss.

Like I think most people, before I had to start to learn about noise induced hearing loss, I had the wrong idea about it. I thought that what you would lose is your hearing in the extremely low and the extremely high frequency ranges but what happens is the opposite of that. The frequency range that goes first is in the mid-range, between say 1000 and 4000 Hz, where our hearing is most sensitive and the first thing people with noise induced hearing notice is that they have difficulty understanding what others are saying to them and as it progresses they become deaf in the vocal frequency range which not only means that you can't enjoy good times with your friends and family the way you used to because you can't understand what they're saying and join in group conversations, you also lose your ability to enjoy music.

I'm 76 and my hearing is about average for a person of my age but that John McLaughlin concert is one of only 2 times in my life I'v'e had ringing in my ears after exposure to noise loud enough to injure my ears because that buzzing/ringing is a sign of injury. The ear can recover from the injury caused by loud noise but if you keep repeating the injury by listening to music at excessively high levels of long periods on a regular basis you will incur permanent hearing damage. I'm lucky that even before I started to find out about noise exposure and hearing loss I tended to prefer listening to music at moderate than at loud to extremely loud levels.

The maximum daily sound exposure level recommended for hearing protection purposes varies a bit from country to country (some countries care more about the health of their workers than others do when it comes to imposing obligations/liabilities on employers) but here in Australia where I am the level at which hearing protection is required is set at an exposure to an average level of 85 dBA for 8 hours. That exposure time is reduced by half for each 3 dBA increase above 85 dBA so the permitted unprotected exposure at 88 dBA would be 4 hours, at 94 dBA its down to 1 hour, and at 100 dBA it's down to 15 minutes a day and at 106 dBA it's down to a bit under 4 minutes a day. Repeated exposure to sound at those levels is known to cause permanent hearing damage.

@Jean-Marie makes the point above that music varies in level and that the level of classical music can vary buy 15 to 20 db, actually in live performance it can vary more than that and the sound level to which the musicians in a symphony orchestra are exposed during a performance can exceed the level at which hearing protection would be required if the performance continued for longer than the normal 2 hour or so duration of a concert performance. Rehearsals result in longer exposures on a day and many orchestras now use sound absorbing baffles between musicians during rehearsals in order to limit the level of noise the musicians are exposed to on a regular basis.

The wider the dynamic range of the music the lower the average noise level is going to be. @Jean-Marie mentioned a 15-20 dB dynamic range and listening at a peak level of 102 dB (I assume he is referring to an A weighted level). It's probable that the average level of a piece of classical music with that dynamic range and peak level would be below 90 dBA, loud climaxes in classical music tend to relatively brief and the music is significantly lower in volume a lot of the time. With pop/rock music the dynamic range of the music is lower and the music is often significantly louder because of amplification. A 4 person rock band can easily play louder than a symphony orchestra at its maximum level. I've heard occasional mention of classical musicians with significant hearing loss but I've heard more stories to rock musicians with significant hearing loss. When it comes to music some sorts of music are more prone to causing damage than others because the dynamic range of the music is lower, the musical peaks are louder, and that means the average level of the music can be higher for one sort of music than another even though the peak level the music reaches is identical.

@Pim mentions using big subwoofers. The hearing protection level uses an A weighted measurement so you see the level shown as "dBA". A weighted levels take into account the sensitivity of the ear at different frequencies and our ears are less sensitive at extremely high and extremely low frequencies and an A weighted measurement will give a lower result than the normal C weighted measurement because the more damage occurs at the frequencies where the ear is most sensitive than at the frequencies where it is least sensitive.

So my advice would be that if you're playing things loud enough to get buzzing in your ears then start listening at lower levels. If the buzzing is persisting for more than an hour or two, especially if it's for more than a day as you report for one occasion, then you really are putting your hearing at extreme risk. If you enjoy music then I assume you'd like to continue enjoying it for the rest of your life and you'd like that life to be long. Listening to overly loud music won't shorten your life but it can mean that you can end up enjoying it for decades less than the length of your life and not only will you not be enjoying music if you damage your hearing badly, you won't be able to enjoy normal conversations with your friends and family either.

If you enjoy music then look after your ears so you can continue to enjoy it. Dial the volume down so that you don't get buzzing in your ears.

BTW, I have't mentioned the fact that in some countries playing music loud enough to annoy the neighbours can result in you getting fined and in some cases even having your audio equipment confiscated. You can pay fines, you can buy more gear, but once your hearing is gone you can't get it back.

[molecule93]

In my "misspent youth" around 50 years ago, I went to a live John McLaughlin and the Mahavishnu Orchestra concert one night. The sound was so loud I had ringing in one ear until around midday the next day...

Thank you for the wise words! You are right, ears need to be taken care of. The 80 I mentionned was once and I was scared because of friends having tinnitus. I am usually around 60 to 65 because I "feel" the music with those speakers at that level. Currently I am listening to a band called Gabriels. It's a mix of soul, gospel, violin and electronic music. I truly have feelings when it goes through! Again, thank you for the time you took to write those detailed explanations as I am sure it will be useful not only for me but for the community too.

[Jean-Marie]

[...]
The wider the dynamic range of the music the lower the average noise level is going to be. @Jean-Marie mentioned a 15-20 dB dynamic range and listening at a peak level of 102 dB (I assume he is referring to an A weighted level). It's probable that the average level of a piece of classical music with that dynamic range and peak level would be below 90 dBA, loud climaxes in classical music tend to relatively brief and the music is significantly lower in volume a lot of the time. With pop/rock music the dynamic range of the music is lower and the music is often significantly louder  because of amplification. A 4 person rock band can easily play louder than a symphony orchestra at its maximum level. I've heard occasional mention of classical musicians with significant hearing loss but I've heard more stories to rock musicians with significant hearing loss. When it comes to music some sorts of music are more prone to causing damage than others because the dynamic range of the music is lower, the musical peaks are louder, and that means the average level of the music can be higher for one sort of music than another even though the peak level the music reaches is identical.
[...]

@David A, you are mostly right with your assumption, except for one aspect (which is entirely due to me not being precise enough).
The 102 dB SPL that I mentioned are absolute peak, without any law applied and therefore are far above the SPL using the A law, even during the climaxes of classical music. If I remember correctly, using the A law, I have never exceeded 90dBA as you are pointing out, but during the climaxes.

As you are correctly pointing out, non compressed classical recording only have short periods of those climaxes and the vast majority of the time the musical message is another 10 to 20 dB bellow, meaning that average SPL I'm exposing myself on a long term basis is more in the range of 70 to 80 dBA.

If I listen to pop or rock music, it is again very depending on the recording, but I often end up listening to them 10 to 16 dB lower (as attenuation at the Devialet) than classical music, which interestingly ends up roughly being a similar long term A law SPL whatever is the kind of music I'm listening to.

I have read an interesting story about instrument players (although I don't remember where and therefore I cannot provide the reference unfortunately). It seams that when you as a player to play an instrument, he or she will naturally play to to around 80 dB SPLA for his/her ears. It seams to be true whatever is the instrument and the explanation given was related to the equal loudness (formally Fletcher–Munson curves) and it seemed to be the sweet spot at which the instrument is sounding with the brightest and richest harmonic and timbral content for the player...

Cheers,

Jean-Marie

[David A]

@Jean-Marie ,

The hearing protection standard/legal requirement is for a time weighted average level. The employer is required to keep the average level an employee to which the employee is exposed to an average of 85 dBA over an 8 hour period in Australia (the level is different in the US and may be different elsewhere also). The peak levels the employee may be exposed to during that period can be higher but the prescribed average level should not be exceeded.

Your peaks of 102 dBA are fine provided your average listening level is lower. How much lower is hard to say because there are 3 factors involved.

The first is how close the average level is to the peak level and the average level may not be in the middle of the dynamic range, it will be closer to the higher end of the range if there's a lot of loud passages and/or long periods of loud passages in the music, in which case you would need to keep your peaks lower in order to not exceed the average level in the standard. On the other hand if the music is generally soft with little in the way of loud passages, even louder peaks may be possible without exceeding the average level.

The second reason is where things start to get messy. While it sounds like the hearing protection standards are intended to prevent hearing damage, they're actually standards intended to ensure an employer takes "reasonable precautions" to protect the hearing of their employees. "Reasonable precautions" does not mean preventing all hearing damage whatsoever, it is accepted that some people will suffer hearing loss even if the standards are met. In some countries the standards are weighted more towards the employer's interests than others. It the US the standard is 88 dBA whereas here in Australia it's 85 dBA. In the US the standard provides less protection than it does in Australia and more employees will suffer hearing loss as a result but even in Australia with that 3 dB lower standard hearing loss can occur.

The third reason is whetre things get messier. The standard is an average over 8 hours because the length of the standard working day is 8 hours. Employers are responsible for the employee's noise exposure while they're working but not when the employee is not working. Office workers are exposed to noise levels significantly below the prescribed standard level while at work because offices tend to be much quieter spaces than industrial and construction sites so the 24 hour whole day exposure of an office worker tends to be lower than that of an industrial or construction worker. The problem is that our total daily exposure contributes to our risk of hearing damage, not just what get's measured over 8 hours, and hearing damage is progressive, it normally takes years for people to start to notice it and it's their total exposure over that longer period of years which eventually causes the problem that someone first notices. As far as I know no one has ever come up with a guide to a whole day safe exposure limit or for a guide to safe exposure to noise over a period of years. We've got a useful guideline but it's not a particularly precise guideline for short term exposure and we've got no way of measuring total exposure over the longer term during which damage occurs or what the effect of a consistent pattern of exposure over the medium to long term is compared to an intermittent pattern of exposure over the same period.

And all of the above only applies to music and other "continuous" sounds. It doesn't apply to very loud, very brief durations sounds like gunshots for example. That sort of sound produces a sudden, violent, air pressure variation which can be very damaging and even a single exposure to that sort of sound may cause hearing damage whereas loud music and other sounds normally only produce hearing damage over a much longer period.

Re your instrument player story: I haven't heard that but if there is some truth in it, the truth will be not that instrument players prefer to play at around 80 dBA levels but at levels at which they perceive the sound of their instrument to be around equal volume to an 80 dBA sound at 1000 Hz. Bass players, for example, have to produce higher sound pressure levels in order to balance the sound of their instruments against the sound of the mid-range instruments. I suspect that there is an element of truth to the story but in any musical ensemble not all players are playing equally loud, some are always playing louder than others and who is playing louder and who is playing softer depends on what's happening in the music at the time and how loud each musician has to play in order to produce a balanced sound in the space in which they're playing.The louder they have to play for the music the less difference in level there will be between the bass players and the mid-range players, for instance, because the ear's sensitivity to low frequencies increases as the SPL of the frequency increases. Look at a set of equal loudness curves and you will see the curves start to flatten out as the sound pressure level increases. Musicians compensate for that "automatically" because they're balancing the level of their instrument to that of the rest of the players by ear.

Don't forget that sound pressure level meters weren't even devised before the 20th century so musicians obviously didn't need them in order to "get things right" before meters became availalble and they haven't started using them for that purpose since meters became available. The relative loudness of individual musicians in a group has always been something the musicians work out by ear and I can't see that changing. Listeners could use a meter and work out some interesting things about the balance the musicians choose but musicians are always going to be guided by how the music sounds, not how the music measures, when they're making music.

Measurements are really useful but measurements can't tell us whether the music we're measuring sounds "good" or "right", our ears tell us that. Measurements can tell us when whatever it is we're hearing is loud enough to be a potential risk to the hearing of most people but it can't tell us whether it's an actual risk to our own hearing because that depends on a lot of things which we can't measure. It can give us some good guidelines but not a guarantee.

One of the things I had drummed into me during my studies was that "measurements tell you a lot about what you measure, they tell you nothing about what you don't measure". There's always something we aren't measuring. Measurements are always only a part of the story and they're not always the important part of the story.

Cheers to you too,

David