gotak said:

   
Lets just stick to whether they sound good or not. As I have said before the hearing loss part is so hard to test you are basically buying that on face value.
 
I have searched high and low and I have not see any reference to pressure as a source of hearing loss. Best not to think about the hearing protection aspect or suggest it to people too much less they decide it's safe to crank the volume and suffer hearing loss as a result.

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+1
 
Just don't blast music too loud, as that will cause hearing loss, no matter what type of IEM/Headphone/Speaker you're using. Use common sense.

gotak said:

Lets just stick to whether they sound good or not. As I have said before the hearing loss part is so hard to test you are basically buying that on face value.

I have searched high and low and I have not see any reference to pressure as a source of hearing loss. Best not to think about the hearing protection aspect or suggest it to people too much less they decide it's safe to crank the volume and suffer hearing loss as a result.

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Quite the opposite,

The claims of the dangers of IEM's as well as the rectification of that danger arebsort of the basis for this product and its marketing. Of course it better sound good if not then blah.

1964 makes good products chances are these will be good, which iem/ciem fits ones preferred sound Sig is what sq will come down to.

Yes to some extent the ADEL system is supposed to through the same mechanism as it removes the ears protection response makes things sound "better", I suppose locking vs unlocking the membrane will tell us that.

Back to the safety claims as that for some including myself is the #1 point by far sq needs to he good but is a distant 2nd for me.

They are not specifically claiming the pneumatic pressure is directly causing the damage, it seems that damage may still hebdue to exsesive volume. What is implied in one of his interviews is that the protection response makes it sound more quite perhaps what is 80db coming from the IEM sounds like 70db and over time though compensation the volumes goes louder and louder, though perceived volume is same.

With these perceived volume is not reduced through protection response and thus sounds 10db louder than sealed IEM'S (per same absolute volume) thus minimizing the temptation to put volume into or over the danger zone.


Of course SQ is important, heck to some looks are Hugh up there, NOBLE/HEIR for example.

Let's talk about all of it

miandnan said:

Quite the opposite,

The claims of the dangers of IEM's as well as the rectification of that danger arebsort of the basis for this product and its marketing. Of course it better sound good if not then blah.

1964 makes good products chances are these will be good, which iem/ciem fits ones preferred sound Sig is what sq will come down to.

Yes to some extent the ADEL system is supposed to through the same mechanism as it removes the ears protection response makes things sound "better", I suppose locking vs unlocking the membrane will tell us that.

Back to the safety claims as that for some including myself is the #1 point by far sq needs to he good but is a distant 2nd for me.

They are not specifically claiming the pneumatic pressure is directly causing the damage, it seems that damage may still hebdue to exsesive volume. What is implied in one of his interviews is that the protection response makes it sound more quite perhaps what is 80db coming from the IEM sounds like 70db and over time though compensation the volumes goes louder and louder, though perceived volume is same.

With these perceived volume is not reduced through protection response and thus sounds 10db louder than sealed IEM'S (per same absolute volume) thus minimizing the temptation to put volume into or over the danger zone.


Of course SQ is important, heck to some looks are Hugh up there, NOBLE/HEIR for example.

Let's talk about all of it

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Sure.
 
There are no peer reviewed publication on ADEL or the claims to hearing protection, the only publication is in society of audio engineer. 
 
The publication is not in medical journals and has not be verified by vigorous scientific principles. There has not been an extensive study based on animal subjects or humans.
 
It is only a conjecture at this point.
 
Most people are confusing claims that this technology can make at certain volume setting sounds louder with providing hearing protection. Just because it sounds louder at a certain volume setting and measured decibel does not provide scientific proof that it will protect your hearing.
 
If the protection reflex is limiting amount of sound going into the ear it is limiting damage by your own arguments. By that it does not matter if the output is 10 db or 20 db as long as it arrives at a safe volume there's no damage right? By that argument it could even be drawn the conclusion that making 10 db arrive at the ear as 10 db vs 20 db arriving in the ear via another headphone as 5 db, this tech can actually be more dangerous.
 
For me until I see a well crafted study using animal subjects I would put the claims of hearing protection as marketing rather than truth.

gotak said:

  Sure.
 
There are no peer reviewed publication on ADEL or the claims to hearing protection, the only publication is in society of audio engineer. 
 
The publication is not in medical journals and has not be verified by vigorous scientific principles. There has not been an extensive study based on animal subjects or humans.
 
It is only a conjecture at this point.
 
Most people are confusing claims that this technology can make at certain volume setting sounds louder with providing hearing protection. Just because it sounds louder at a certain volume setting and measured decibel does not provide scientific proof that it will protect your hearing.
 
If the protection reflex is limiting amount of sound going into the ear it is limiting damage by your own arguments. By that it does not matter if the output is 10 db or 20 db as long as it arrives at a safe volume there's no damage right? By that argument it could even be drawn the conclusion that making 10 db arrive at the ear as 10 db vs 20 db arriving in the ear via another headphone as 5 db, this tech can actually be more dangerous.
 
For me until I see a well crafted study using animal subjects I would put the claims of hearing protection as marketing rather than truth.

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Amen! Couldn't agree more. Let's not confuse all these claims for scientific evidence as so far it's purely marketing speak. As long as it's not peer reviewed by independent scientists, we can not be sure if any of the claims made by ADEL are true.
 
Again, I doubt it's complete and utter snake oil either, I doubt that 1964ears would stake their reputation like that, but so far it's purely marketing.

gotak said:

Sure.

There are no peer reviewed publication on ADEL or the claims to hearing protection, the only publication is in society of audio engineer. 

The publication is not in medical journals and has not be verified by vigorous scientific principles. There has not been an extensive study based on animal subjects or humans.

It is only a conjecture at this point.

Most people are confusing claims that this technology can make at certain volume setting sounds louder with providing hearing protection. Just because it sounds louder at a certain volume setting and measured decibel does not provide scientific proof that it will protect your hearing.

If the protection reflex is limiting amount of sound going into the ear it is limiting damage by your own arguments. By that it does not matter if the output is 10 db or 20 db as long as it arrives at a safe volume there's no damage right? By that argument it could even be drawn the conclusion that making 10 db arrive at the ear as 10 db vs 20 db arriving in the ear via another headphone as 5 db, this tech can actually be more dangerous.

For me until I see a well crafted study using animal subjects I would put the claims of hearing protection as marketing rather than truth.

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Fair points,

The mechanisms of damage matter.

Agreed on the marketing talk. Guess it is either a non point for some (only certainty is the sound) or risk for others I would rather take the chances it works if so good for my ears.

Again very fair points (peer review and esp marketing)

Sorry for a long post.  Totally agree that there is no peer-reviewed scientific literature.  There is no independent verification--science needs to be replicated by others.  The one "publication" we do see on the website looks like it was a poster at a meeting -- probably not peer-reviewed. There is no indication that the audiology community has formed a consensus that this is an hearing-saving technology.  I'll return to the evidence we do have below.
 
I am not an expert in hearing research but I've done a good bit of lab animal research.  As a consequence I don't know if there are good animal models for human hearing,  My hunch is for some kinds of studies animal models are appropriate and for others no so much. I suspect that animal studies would be of marginal value here if you could even get them past the animal care review committee.  Painful stimuli are tough to justify.
 
Human experiments could be used to show a difference between perceived loudness with and without the ADEL.  One could safely assume that a technology that caused listeners to lower the volume knob 10dB suggests that less hearing loss will occur.  It is true as others have stated that we know that exposure to noise causes hearing loss and the degree of loss is related to volume.
 
An experiment designed to compare hearing loss in humans with or without ADEL would never be approved by an institutional review committee.  It's outright unethical to cause harm.  Thus we will never have direct evidence that the technology works.  It will also be difficult, if not impossible, to do a good retrospective study between people who have used ADEL for 5 or 10 years and others who haven't because their are just so many confounders in an heterogeneous population with unique experiences, lifestyles, diets and health status.  It would be worth trying though.  I doubt such a follow-up study will ever be done.
 
I backed the project for an A-12. If I don't think there is good evidence and there probably never will be, why?  Firstly I wanted to move to a CIEM from my Shure SE535s.  Picking the right CIEM is not easy task, lots of good ones out there and lots of opinions coupled with little opportunity to try them out for the extended periods required to know for sure which is right for me (I live in Northern Idaho--not many dealers around).  I was about to opt for JH13s or  the V6 --big difference in cost --when ADEL showed up on the screen.  I know they make good CIEMs; they were on my short list.  I concluded that there is enough reason to believe their claims even if they are not proven by scientific evidence to my satisfaction.
 
First we have the principles of hearing loss: continuous exposure to loud noise causes harm and turning down the volume mitigates harm.  Secondly the mechanism by which ADEL operates should reduce pressure although I am not sure it's completely understood.  I won't go into what I think is happening because I haven't done the math and have no evidence or studies but I do believe that listeners perceive equal volume at lower output level settings.  That's what counts.  It is not easy to get a patent, an NIH grant or an NSF grant.  In fact it's darn hard to get them.  These were development grants which means the review committees agreed with the underlying principles of physics and audiology.  There are a lot of endorsements.  I know that these are anecdotal evidence but worth something.  FInally, both Asius and 1964Ears along with Ambrose and Belonozhko have placed their reputations and those of their company on the line.  Sure there's a lot of advertising hype, that's how you sell products.  It's not even clear to me why they need the Kickstarter project.  It could be nothing but advertising hype.  They've sold about $250K worth of product and gotten a lot of publicity.
 
In an earlier post I did express a concern about their liability and exposure for people who turned up the volume because they thought these CIEMs couldn't cause hearing loss but I suppose if there is a disclaimer and the product literature and advertising cautions people that listening to loud music can still cause hearing loss there won't be too many lawsuits.
 
The bottom line is we don't know squat about whether this technology works. What we do know is that we will probably get very well built and good sounding good looking IEMs and CIEMs from good companies.  If they also protect our hearing that's a plus.  I was willing to pay about what I am going to pay for the A12 anyway.  The bet I am making is that the membrane and controlled leakage acts in a unique way to really improve the sound. The discussion about each person needing to tune the phones to each ear suggests to me that the developers have optimized the sound in a manner analogous to improved speaker-port design.  The membrane reminds me of a passive radiator in a speaker, or maybe a speaker with a tiny port and passive radiator.  To cut to the chase, I thought it was worth a gamble and I'm banking on a big step up from Shure SE535s.  Those of you who already have a collection of good IEMs and/or CIEMs will probably have to buy one of these anyway just to see for yourselves if ADEL works.

To add to the discussion, I do remember in one of the videos Ambrose said that the membrane itself had a leathery appearance due to constant reflex, or something along those lines. I feel like he's implying with that statement that the eardrum itself is getting damaged, and increasing hearing loss. 
 
And to AudioBear, what about using monkeys/apes as test subjects? I don't know anything about their hearing system, but shouldn't it be similar to that of a human's, having the same sort of acoustic reflex mechanism? And I don't think you would necessarily use painful amounts of sound to test the hearing loss. It might be a long and perhaps wasteful study to conduct, but maybe you could do it for a few years, and see if there is any loss of hearing at all between the control group listening to normal IEMs and the group listening with ADEL tech. I have no idea if that would work though, or give meaningful results.

There exists lots of reading about the stapedial muscle.  I found this one source to be quite informative and easily understood.  http://emedicine.medscape.com/article/1831254-overview

tf1216 said:

  There exists lots of reading about the stapedial muscle.  I found this one source to be quite informative and easily understood.  http://emedicine.medscape.com/article/1831254-overview

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Too much reading..... does anyone have an audio version I can listen to through my IEMs? 

pazz said:

  To add to the discussion, I do remember in one of the videos Ambrose said that the membrane itself had a leathery appearance due to constant reflex, or something along those lines. I feel like he's implying with that statement that the eardrum itself is getting damaged, and increasing hearing loss. 
 
And to AudioBear, what about using monkeys/apes as test subjects? I don't know anything about their hearing system, but shouldn't it be similar to that of a human's, having the same sort of acoustic reflex mechanism? And I don't think you would necessarily use painful amounts of sound to test the hearing loss. It might be a long and perhaps wasteful study to conduct, but maybe you could do it for a few years, and see if there is any loss of hearing at all between the control group listening to normal IEMs and the group listening with ADEL tech. I have no idea if that would work though, or give meaningful results.

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Monkeys are certainly the closest animal model to humans but I think it would be unlikely that such an experiment will be done for a couple of reasons.  There are very few experimental monkey colonies left in the US. The cost of keeping a colony is prohibitive.  Assuming they have the same hearing mechanisms and loss due to sound as do humans, a study of comparative hearing loss over years would cost millions.  Getting a primate protocol approved is extremely difficult.  The lower the volume the longer the study would take and the more it would cost.  Thus, one would want to use high volumes to shorten the time frame which might be uncomfortable for the monkeys and that's unacceptable.  We already know that the louder the noise and/or the longer the exposure the greater the hearing loss. I think if you have good studies that show people will listen to music at lower volumes on ADELs than on conventional IEMs you have all the information you need to say they protect the ears IF people don't crank up the volume to levels that cause loss.  There is pretty good data on sound exposure and hearing loss on which OSHA sound exposure standards are set. A couple of well-done studies in good audiology journals that demonstrate people perceive equal loudness at lower volumes would nail it.  Ambrose has posted some data, he just needs to publish a peer-reviewed paper and/or have others in the field confirm it.  That would put them on very solid ground. As you can tell from my backing A12s, I buy their claim.

audiobear said:

Monkeys are certainly the closest animal model to humans but I think it would be unlikely that such an experiment will be done for a couple of reasons.  There are very few experimental monkey colonies left in the US. The cost of keeping a colony is prohibitive.  Assuming they have the same hearing mechanisms and loss due to sound as do humans, a study of comparative hearing loss over years would cost millions.  Getting a primate protocol approved is extremely difficult.  The lower the volume the longer the study would take and the more it would cost.  Thus, one would want to use high volumes to shorten the time frame which might be uncomfortable for the monkeys and that's unacceptable.  We already know that the louder the noise and/or the longer the exposure the greater the hearing loss. I think if you have good studies that show people will listen to music at lower volumes on ADELs than on conventional IEMs you have all the information you need to say they protect the ears IF people don't crank up the volume to levels that cause loss.  There is pretty good data on sound exposure and hearing loss on which OSHA sound exposure standards are set. A couple of well-done studies in good audiology journals that demonstrate people perceive equal loudness at lower volumes would nail it.  Ambrose has posted some data, he just needs to publish a peer-reviewed paper and/or have others in the field confirm it.  That would put them on very solid ground. As you can tell from my backing A12s, I buy their claim.

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By monkeys, you mean Chimpanzees, sorry but I'm stickler for this sort of thing. Chimps are technically not monkeys.

Monkeys, Apes (including chimps), and humans are all primates.  You are certainly correct in noting that Chimps are closer to humans than monkeys but I totally excluded them from the realm of possibility.  Chimps are really really expensive and they can be as difficult as humans to work with.  So to answer you question I meant monkeys when I said monkeys.
 
And i agree we should be careful about what words we choose. You were right to question.

Cats are felines of the genus felis.

New Stretch Goal... that's a pretty big stretch, was hoping for a $300,000 stretch first.

$350,000 3-Button Microphone

Life is on the go. Transform your 1964ADEL Earphones into a mobile phone headset by adding an inline 3-button microphone and volume control. This state-of-the-art accessory also gives you the added convenience of accepting calls and skipping tracks to find your favorite music without reaching for your pocket. Compatible only with iDevices.

"Compatible only with iDevices"

iDon't understand why.