Hi, I own a pair of Shure's SE 530 in-ear monitors. I use it with an Archos 5 IMT player, and have enjoyed the audio quality of the combination.

Last night, while using both of the above together, I was fidgeting with the Archos player, and I accidentally hit the volume to full. My ears were blasted with music for a second or three (max.) at peak volume, but I managed to set it back to moderate levels quickly. I didn't find any ringing in the ears later, nor was my hearing affected in any perceptible way.

My question is this: Since the Shures are super-sensitive, balanced-armature types, with dedicated ones for bass and treble in each earphone, could I have damaged them? I can't sense any change in the performance of the Shures since the incident, but was wondering if high volume could technically damage these earphones in any way. If they have been damaged, what would the typical symptoms be?

Or are earphones designed to take the full volume range of music players?


Thanks.

It happened to my SE530 the first time I got it. I put it into my CD player which happened to have the volume on high then I remembered shortly before it started blasting going "HOLY SHI-" and hastily unplugging them from my ears. The music blasted at super high volume for about 3 seconds before I turned down the volume. I was worried that I might have damaged it at that time.

A year later, it's still trucking along without any sound problems. So don't worry about a thing.