When Can Headphones and Earbuds Damage Your Hearing?

Author: Andrew Heinzman / Source: How-To Geek

Conversations about headphone-induced hearing loss have faded away, but headphones and earbuds still post a serious risk to your ears. How loud is too loud, and how do you protect your ears without giving up music?

The Threshold for Hearing Damage is 85 dB

Most doctors agree that 85 dB is the threshold for hearing damage. After repeated long term exposure to sounds at or above 85 dB, you can expect to experience some hearing loss or tinnitus.

And while you’d probably assume that 85 dB is “extremely loud,” there’s a good chance that you’re exposed to sounds that exceed this threshold every day. Lawnmowers and busy restaurants, for example, tend to put out about 90 dB of sound.

Don’t worry, a morning lawncare session or a dinner at Applebee’s won’t lead to hearing loss. Doctors agree that your ears can handle up to eight hours of exposure to 85 dB. But as you can imagine, as volume level increases, your hearing tolerance decreases. Your ears just can’t handle 100 dB for eight hours. That’s where music lovers should start getting worried.

What Happens After 85 dB?

Your headphones and your audio source dictate how loud your music gets. But across the board, nearly all combinations of phones, amplifiers, and headphones can push well past the 85 dB threshold. Some headphones can even get between the 110 to 120 dB range. At that volume level, your ears can handle about a minute of exposure before sustaining damage.

See, the relationship between dB level and volume tolerance isn’t linear. At 90 dB, four hours of exposure time will cause permanent hearing loss. Go up to 95 dB, and your ears can only handle two hours of exposure. Push it up to 110 dB, and your ears can only take 1 minute and 29 seconds.

Can You Measure Your Headphones’ dB Level?

If you want to know for sure that your headphones or earbuds are exceeding the 85 dB threshold, then you’re going to run into a bit of trouble. Accurately measuring your headphones’ dB level is difficult.

Most dB meters are made to calculate the volume of an environment, like a restaurant or a construction site. But the sound from headphones and earbuds are made to shoot directly into your ears, not out into a room. So, to use a dB meter with a pair of headphones, you have to stick the headphones right against the meter. At best, you’ll get a semi-accurate reading.

Now,…

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