when listening to a CD how high do you play the music for prolonged periods? (like going to work/school). i have mine up around the right side of the d i dont really know how many tick marks it is but i was thinking that i shouldnt do that cause it may hurt the speakers. can i really do some damage to them by playing it that loud? or how high is too high?

yeah i know this belongs on another section but i figured i have a better chance of responses by postin it here.

 

Some studies have shown that just city noise levels can hurt your hearing.

Here is a link:


http://www.abelard.org/hear/hear.htm

 

Not sure.. I'm sure it depends on the type of music as well... you know heavy bass, etc.

I think one of my Tweeters in blown from playing music too loud, there is a slight hissing that comes and goes from it...

 

i always crank my shit up all the way. bass all the way down. treble, one or two clicks up. been doing it since i bought the car in jan of 2001. Good thing i have subs to make up for the missing bass.

 

My stereo doesn't go loud enough for me

 

IF your ears "ring" all night long and into the next day (after a "music session" or "concert"), you're screwing your hearing up!


(A trip back in to time to a "Blue Cheer" concert would clue you in for sure...)

 

I agree 100% with the second to last post about the ringing in the ear.

 

hmmmm.... if we blow a speaker from playing too our system too loud, is that covered under warrenty?

 

I know quite a few audio engineers that mix down music at 102-105 DB all day for 18 years. And they have the best ears I have ever heard of. They can play a CD and tell you what frequeny and +/- db your system is off, just by listening. Insane people. Guess you have to be good at it after that long. And I have verifyed these peoples comments with a TEF (time energy frequency) system. They were dead on.

There is some thing to keep in mind. The speakers they listen to are nearly distortion free. You can have 102db of distortion do damage to your ears. So using DB as a tolerance threshold by itself is not a very good measurement. Your signal (sound) source will certainly play a role on damaging to your ears.

BASS will do more damage to your nervous system than your ears at loud levels. Granted there is a point of no return when things get too loud. But in most avg. (or above) cars 130db of bass is normal. (system with some subs) 130db of treble you definetly will not want to be sitting in the car.

As your not going to *hear* any frequency lower then mabye 400-500 hz in a car without a bandpass box :P (don't use those they suck) it requires nearly 30ft of space to finish one cycle of a 200hz tone. Figure how many times that sound wave is going to bounce in your car (or out the window... hehe, which then you never hear it) before it actually resonates...

So mainly you feel BASS... now distorted BASS and hurting your hearing... bad!

Someone mentioned city noise and it could be bad for you hearing. That just goes back to your audio source. The more pure the signal is, you will have mor tolerance to it being louder. As a distorted signal is going to throw your eardrum all around.

This is also why crazy people still pay $20k for a record player. Because they do sound better than a CD. Some people who know nothing, and assume all records get scrated, and sound like shit in general have no idea what they are talking about. (granted records do sound horrible after you scratch them) record just aren't convenient. As your not going to use one in your car CD is convenient...

The fixed rate of 44K a second of data on a CD player is no where near the data rate of vinyl (if you can say it has a data rate, heh). Vinyl does contain a lot more information than 44k a second. Of course you will need to find someone who recorded directly to vinyl. Which some people still do, now thats an art.

So I dunno, think I was mainly off subject a little, but good luck finding your answer.

 

Yes, assuming you haven't installed anything (power amp, etc.) that exceeds the recommended wattage of the speakers.

 

I hope your not implying that just because the sound is non-distorted at 102-105 DB, that hearing is not impaired. And yes, most good sound engineers can identify very slight irregularities in sound – seen it and been there.

The problem is: the “damage” that is done by sound doesn’t happen overnight would not be initially recognized by an inability to detect sound level differences between most frequencies.

In fact, a good audiologist will generally test hearing with a range of frequencies at very low level sounds, and it is normally the high frequency response that goes first (it’s also a normal effect of aging). In addition, there are hearing damage issues that show up in ways that are non-obvious. For example, the ability to hear a particular person speaking in a noisy restaurant would be one example (of many).

The distortion issues gets back to frequency-to-time energy issues. Distortion tests to produce copious harmonics and increases the amount of acoustic energy output relative to input power. Perhaps it would be better to qualify the energy as a function of change in sound pressure over time. Various “non-distorting” signals with “percussive” qualities (pulses), can generate much more peak transient sound levels for a given power input. Any familiar with frequency-to-time and time-to-frequency domain issues would “get this”. 130db is going to be hazardous to hearing – period! And 102db of sounds with fast rise times can be just as devastating (and need not be distorted).

The US Army has already done numerous experiments with high-power low frequency energy (sound) and can use it to cause nausea and vomiting in crowds (It's a possible crowd control method of the future...)


Distortion == altered rise time and more generally implies more energy per unit time.. However, headphones are quite small, but will destroy an eardrum with only an inch of space to do it in!

No, no, no… It is the shape of the wave as it relates to the time-domain. I can get a function generator and make a “pure” sound, and it will kill your ears just as quick as city noise will. Back to the time-domain again.
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I’m not going to argue Nyquist criteria for sampling D/A converters, etc. However, I sure could hear the quality of my “old vinyl records” deteriorate with each playing. The idea of a diamond or sapphire being pummeled about in a tiny plastic groove is nuts! They sound great the first time, and if you can afford to buy a new one for each playing…enjoy…

Please to check out Nyquist sampling issues. I personally had my hearing checked and can only hear to about 16K (at this point in my life), and most of the new digital medias have moved above 44K sampling. There are also interpolating converters ( using over sampling) that tend to negate any issues about this.



The reason I responded here is to hope that most people wont now conclude that they have a “clear” ticket to zero ear damage due to frequency issues. You are “nibbling” at one of the important issues and this concerns the “type” of sound (it’s not the distortion) as expressed as change in sound pressure over time (time domain).

 

I just had an hearing exam. Everything was fine EXCEPT hi pitch sounds, I was off the scale ! I didn't hear a thing ! Doctor returned and asked: Did you go to ROCK concerts when you were younger ? I said yes, he said, you screwed that part of your hearing and is NOT repairable ! I have to live with it. WATCH THE VOLUME IN THE CAR ! He told me that I need to have ear plugs around lawn mower engine noise, gas blowers etc.......what a bitch !

EricL is right on target ! Eric, sorry for not getting back to you ! I was busy working two deals, which closed tonight ! YEAH $$$$$$$$$$$$$$YEAH ! :P

 

When i listen music, i usually have it all the way to the "C" in the display "Cd" if you know what i mean. Sometimes one click pass "C" when listen to heavy bass music. I don't know how many clicks there are, but i'll count for you if you really want to know.