Is it true? A question to everybody on head-fi.

If I'm wearing in-ears and I can hear your in-ears across the room, over my music, then yes, you will damage your hearing. It has nothing to do with in-ear or over ear.

What matters is volume. In-ears are usually a lot more sensitive, so you can turn them up louder, but that's a temptation you can ignore.

Yes they will actually save your hearing if you're out in public a lot.  If your headphones don't isolate well you'll find yourself turning the volume up to compensate because the ambient noise is intruding too much.  At the time it doesnt' seem like the volume is too loud, but it is.  

Quote:

Originally Posted by K-MONEY 

Is it true that in-ear headphones will damage your ears a lot faster and easier than on-ear or around-ear headphones?

IME yes.

Iems get really close to your ear drum so if you listen at the same volume as you would on normal headphones damage will occur faster.

If you turn the volume all the way up, then Yes. 

Quote:

Originally Posted by TMRaven 

Yes they will actually save your hearing if you're out in public a lot.  If your headphones don't isolate well you'll find yourself turning the volume up to compensate because the ambient noise is intruding too much.  At the time it doesnt' seem like the volume is too loud, but it is.  

Nailed it. It's really sad how many people are going deaf these days from having to blast their iBuds in noisy environments.

Quote:

Originally Posted by bcasey25raptor 

IME yes.

 

Iems get really close to your ear drum so if you listen at the same volume as you would on normal headphones damage will occur faster.

Perceived volume is volume at the ear drum, so volume at the driver would be lower. It'll damage the ear drum at the same rate.

You'd want to worry more about the small hairs that are in your canal, anyways.  Those are very fragile.

in my experience/opinion, it is EASIER to damage your hearing with iem's but not necessarily more likely.

I would also say you have to exercise more caution with the volume control when using IEM's.

The proximity of the source of the sound to the eardrum doesn't matter when it comes to hearing damage. What matters is the actual decibels that reach your eardrums in the end. As others have pointed out, IEMs could actually protect your hearing, because your music doesn't have to compete with outside noises because of the isolation. This allows you to listen to lower volumes.

The reason why people THINK, IEMs cause hearing damage, is because they allow you to listen to insane volume levels without distortion, so it's very hard to notice you're listening too loud. And because of the isolation you don't bother others with your music and no one is gonna tell you to turn the volume down. So yeah, IEMs might cause more damage, but not due to the nature of IEMs, but because of the user abusing his ears.

And they know standing next to a loudspeaker in a disco is worse than standing 30 meters away from it. So it sure must be worse to stick little speakers right into your ear, right? They forget that in a disco, they don't turn the loudspeaker down as soon as your standing closer to it!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Head Injury 

Perceived volume is volume at the ear drum, so volume at the driver would be lower. It'll damage the ear drum at the same rate.

Iems? Full blast on iphone = intense ringing.

M50s? Full blast on iphone = no ringing.

Quote:

Originally Posted by bcasey25raptor 

Iems? Full blast on iphone = intense ringing.

M50s? Full blast on iphone = no ringing.

That is simply because of the more sensitive IEM being much louder.

Quote:

Originally Posted by stv014 

That is simply because of the more sensitive IEM being much louder.

 

People are stupid. They turn it up. People will be deafened with iems vs headphones.

listening to m50s full blast right now and i don't give a SH1T if it screws my hearing it's to much fun.