When is music too loud for a headphone?

You'll start to cause damage to your hearing before you damage your headphones, but it doesn't necessarily have to hurt to cause damage. Everyone has different tolerances. I wouldn't be able to stand anything as loud as 90 dB, but that's regular listening volume for some people.

I listen to my music via ipod touch 3G with the volume maxed out, and it has never damaged any of the headphones/earphones I've used (and all the ones I had prior to joining head-fi recently were sub-$40 headphones, so I'd expect that more expensive ones should be just as durable, if not more).

An iPod does not really have the power to damage headphones, at least not a typical full sized model anyway. It is more possible with desktop amplifiers, or generally anything that can exceed the maximum rated power handling of the headphone.

DC or very low frequency at high amplitude (normally not likely with music, but can be the result of e.g. a faulty source/amplifier) is more capable of mechanically damaging headphone drivers, before causing hearing damage.

 

Edited by stv014 - 1/6/12 at 3:53pm

I may have damaged my K81s. I was listening loud when a merzbow song came on and now when I adjust the volume it clicks. The headphones sound fine though, and don't do it when connected to my Burson so maybe I damaged the player. I'm not sure on the volume I was listening to at the time, rockbox listed it as -8db, and it goes up to +25db.

Were you amping? If so, -8 is still pretty loud. I had a friend (who also happens to be quite idiotic) who attempted to turn my Rockboxed Clip to +6db while amped and plugged into my Westones a few years back, and I almost killed him. He didn't realize they were anything more than cheapo earbuds. After that, I my Westones were ruined.

No, I was driving them right out of the Fuze. I usually keep it around -9 so I wasn't too above my normal volumes. Merzbow is harsh noise and I've always been worried about damaging my headphones with it playing too loudly. Come to think of it my K81/Burson combo handled it quite nicely yesterday. The Burson takes the edge off of it so I can listen to it without turning it way down.
I've made it a rule to keep the noise music and really heavy metal like Darkspace off the portable player.

Forget  about your headphones your hearing is what you should be worried about you only have one pair of those.All i can say is avoid tinnitus!

In order to blow the drivers, you have to feed them a heavily distorted signal that has been amplified. Then the voice coils start heating up and eventually the driver will seize up. Usually takes a good minute at least. Even cheap headphones can do 110db all day long so long as the watts are clean. My rule of thumbs are don't use too much boost on the EQ and make sure your amp has some volume headroom left for the big dynamics, and also to keep the distortion low. 

Edited by EYEdROP - 1/6/12 at 9:04pm

I realize this, but the OP was worrying about whether 3/4 of the max volume was going to damage his/her headphones, hence my response.
 

 

 

Paradoxically, damage to headphones is almost always caused by an underpowered signal rather than one which is overpowered.

(Same with speakers and other transducers.)

 

You can generally feed 'clean' signal (music) into your headphones at high volume (i.e. loudness level) without issues. 

(Definitely not recommended due to potential hearing damage.)

But once that signal distorts - 99.99% of the time due to amplifier "clipping" - your headphone drivers are in serious danger of being damaged.

 

Since bass tones draw much more power from amplifiers than mids or trebles, turning up the bass just a little bit can cause clipping distortion.

Also, certain types of music inherently contain distorted signal, so that has to be taken into account.

And then there is the source material - a "dirty" recording is already somewhat distorted, thus the "dirty" sound (no reflection on the artistic

quality of the music, of course).

 

So, how loud is too loud?  The loudness level just before distortion of the signal becomes intolerable to the headphone drivers.

 

 

 

edit: syntax

Edited by zazex - 1/7/12 at 10:04pm

 

Drivers can be damaged mainly due to two reasons: mechanical or heat. The latter happens when the power dissipation on the voice coil becomes too high, regardless of the frequency or waveform of the signal. With mid to high frequency, damage to the listener's ears is more likely, though, unless maybe if the excessive power is so much that it can destroy the drivers in a short time, and they are unable to reproduce the corresponding high SPL due to (mechanical) clipping. Mechanical damage (i.e. "blowing" the driver) is a result of excessive force being applied to the diaphragm, or trying to move it beyond the range it normally allows. The latter can more easily happen with low frequency signals, and especially with DC, and in such cases the driver can easily be damaged well before the listener's ears. I do not think distortion has a huge effect on the damage potential, unless the signal is basically turned into a low frequency square wave on bass notes (it would sound unlistenably bad much earlier), and even then it is secondary to the actual power. An iPod with any amount of clipping (but no DC or very low frequency at a high level) is never as effective at destroying headphones than the cleanest signal at maximum volume directly from a 100+ W power amplifier.

 

 

In other words, the energy being produced as heat is not being dissipated rapidly enough to prevent the voice coil from melting. 

Yes, that can certainly happen.  IME though clipping distortion is the more common reason for driver damage.

 

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I don't know what you mean by "(mechanical) clipping".  Clipped sinewaves are electrical in nature.

Perhaps you can explain further (?)

 

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Yes, the 'excursion' limits of the drivers are exceeded and the driver is thereby damaged.

Clipping distortion, though, will certainly "blow the driver" just as effectively, and more suddenly as well.

 

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But distortion is, in fact, hugely dangerous to these types of drivers - especially at high SPL's.
 

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Certainly true.

But no one in their right mind is going to be driving their headphones with a 100W power amplifier.

 

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