What’s a Safe Listening Volume?

If you look all around you, you will notice you are constantly bombarded with sounds that could damage your ear. Harmful sounds could come from where you work or live, but one of the leading causes of hearing damage is listening too loud. This quick reference will cover the following.

A local hearing instrument specialist (HIS) will provide a professional service, treat and advise you about safe hearing levels. They will also test and fit you with any devices you need, such as a hearing aid.

Safe Volumes

Harmful sounds are all around you. Everyday activities such as listening to music or podcasts, passing a building site or performing your employment duties in a loud environment are hazardous to your ear health. All of these might cause long-term damage to your ears, leading to conditions like tinnitus and hearing loss.

A noise level of 85 decibels (dB) or more is considered harmful. For example, a busy restaurant, motorcycle riding and listening to music through headphones regularly exceed safe levels. Therefore, they could cause damage to your ears. Fortunately, modern listening devices have many safety aspects, such as auto-volume leveling and noise-canceling devices. These can help keep your volume to the recommended level of 70dB or less.

When You Might Need Hearing Protection

There are many reasons you might need to protect your hearing. Your job can be a primary contributor. Working in a restaurant, as an airport ground crew or in a manufacturing plant, you will be exposed to sound levels above the safety of 70dB. But your listening devices such as headphones, speakers and soundbars can also damage your ears.

As a musician, movie or TV buff or even a music fan, you may often expose your ears to sounds above the safe levels. For example, EDM music producers and playing in a band or orchestra are particularly hazardous to your ears, and you will need protection. Fortunately, there are various ways you can minimize the impact of loud sounds from hobbies on your ears.

How to Listen at a Safe Level

Ear protection is necessary for many reasons, especially if you are regularly exposed to loud sounds. Working on a building site, for example, requires you to wear sound dampening mufflers or earplugs. These are designed to block sounds up to a specific decibel level. Your employer is responsible for providing such protection as part of health and safety regulations.

But at home, you are responsible for your ear safety. Most modern listening devices come with auto-volume safe level settings, which keep the volume at a comfortable ear level. However, it is common for users to switch this off to better hear music and podcasts in a busy environment, such as traveling to work.

Noise Cancelling Headphones

Standard headphones don’t filter external sounds. This means the sounds from your environment can be heard over your music. This will cause you to turn up the volume to listen to the layers of your favorite tracks or the voices on a podcast. Typically, this level will exceed 70dB. Instead, noise-canceling technology blocks almost all external sounds. This allows you to listen to music at much lower volumes than usual and is, therefore, a lot safer for your ears.

Noise-Filtering Headphones

Noise filters don’t completely block external sounds in the same way as noise-canceling headphones. However, they drastically decrease external disruption by between 15dB and 30dB. Because of this, they are a great alternative to standard headphones when you cannot afford expensive noise-canceling headphones.

How to Tell If Your Ears are Damaged

Around 30 million people experience hearing damage or loss in the United States alone. There are many symptoms of hearing impairment from headphones or prolonged exposure to external sounds. Difficulties following a conversation are usually the first signs of hearing loss. This can be incredibly disruptive to your work life. Muffled sounds from everyday things like the TV, phone or sounds from outside are also a clear indication of hearing damage.

If you experience any of these, consult a local hearing instrument specialist as soon as possible, or you could end up with severe problems like tinnitus.

Booking an Appointment

You can use an online search engine to find a local expert who can help you with any issues. For example, Google SERPs will display the closest practices with business information such as opening hours, contact details, address and website if they have one.

Client reviews are also usually a good indicator of how good a service of practice is. So, take the time to read what people say about a particular establishment.

However, if you have any queries or experience hearing-related problems, visit our website for Armand’s Hearing Center or call us at: Bradenton: 941-748-9800 and Sun City: 813-938-1148.