[daremedy]

I have just started getting into this hobby and suffered an unfortunate accident with the volume switch on a Corda Concerto. After having purchased a pair of Denon D5000, I went to a showroom here in Hong Kong to try various amps. When trying the Corda Concerto, there was a problem with the volume dial. It was broken so instead of stopping at zero at the bottom, it spun over to maximum volume. This happened after I plugged in my D5000 and an electronic music CD with a massive low-end bass sound was playing. For about 2 seconds, my ears were subjected to extreme bass at the Concerto's maximum volume through D5000s. I immediately felt a sharp pain in my left ear. When I complained to the store, they said the dial must have been broken by a previous customer and removed the model. I left the store because my ear hurt too much to keep testing. My ear kept hurting for about 2 days, so I only went back to the store today (3 days later). I bought a Corda Concerto after more testing (at normal volumes). However after listening to it at home for about 10 minutes (with the dial turned only 1/4 of the way to maximum) I developed the same pain in my left ear together with a ringing like tinnitus. Could experienced users please advise if it is possible I caused permanent damage by the combination of the Concerto at maximum volume with the D5000 and heavy sub-bass for 1 - 2 seconds only?

 

[leeperry]

go see a doctor ASAP...no forum user can help. good luck.

 

[legcramp]

Yes, extreme volume can cause hearing damage, go see a doctor if you haven't already especially since the pain is still there!

 

[k00zk0]

Not to discourage you but the doctor may not help as much as you can. If they stray from normal diagnoses and protocol, they can prescribe something like corticosteroidal drops for the ear to stop inflammatory damage.
 
Most important is you don't eat anything ototoxic for the next month. The delicate repair procedure will be compromised and may only resume at 90% of what it could be with each exposure to things like excessive carbs (stop the coca cola and refined sugar) excessive sodium/glutamate (no crap foods), antibiotics in poultry, etc. Get decent good protein. I don't mean meat, the same percentage protein exists in whole wheat, brown rice and anything raw and unrefined. In the case you eat lots of crap now, fix that at least for a little while. While I don't know how big of a difference this makes, flavinoids (from fruit and other plants) are sold as something called Lipoflav or similar to eliminate tinnitus (which is according to another study actually the brain incorrectly compensating for slight hearing damage) as well as another study saying flavinoids essentially cure schizophrenia and horrible physical degenerations of the brain. More raw fruits and veg will never hurt anyways.
 
You are what you eat and breathe. That fully holds true, including the little hairs and structure of the cochlea.
 
Be confident there will be no lasting damage. In the worst possible case, the brain uses data from the other ear, and methods we don't yet understand to reconstruct the data that should be there. Perceptively, unless you're listening to test tones, you will never notice.
 
The fact that it wasn't high frequency spared you the greatest bit. HF pretty much vibrates a small number of sensitive filaments to oblivion, and they don't work right again. Low frequency would more or less be like strong barometric changes happening too rapidly for the blood supply to the area to adjust to. Basically, the hairs and tube all gently got compressed and sucked on, instead of select few ripped to shreds. That would explain a dull ache, rather than a very strong tinnitus akin to going to a concert drunk (goddam never drink alcohol at a floor concert. The thinning effect suppresses the ears ability to dull the sound as much. Only time I did left a week of tinnitus...)
 
Ask the doctor for everything they can to naturally assist in damage repair. The reason I am enthusiastic here is I had/have interest in lasers and lights before pro audio (music came first and after a 200 mW 100 millisecond exposure conveniently right in the macula, I was left with a spot smack dab in the center of the good eye, the size of the word "of" at a normal distance from the screen. Pretty much, effective vision acuity was cut five times. I had to come too close to street signs to make out what they said, too little room to change even two lanes to make the turn. The optometrist was understanding and referred me to an opthamologist appt within a few days. He prescribed me steroidal drops that he hoped would make it to the retina when applied in large amounts (4 drops at once, but only once a day) which would forcibly stop inflammation, and resulting damage/attack by the immune system. Furthermore, he had a bunch of trial packs of a vitamin supplement very high in vitamin A equivalents as beta-carotene, and other helpful things, originally for age-related macular degeneration. He gave me a huge handful of these trial packs, it took me a month to finish them. I now have no resulting little spot left, 4 years later, while a year after I would actually notice a dot the size of a period missing. This includes very low light (like normally heavily shaded outdoor areas, but at night too) which I expected to work a bit worse, having some but possibly only a fraction of the functional cones/rods left, and artificially boosted by the brain to look like nothing was deficient.
 
Essentially, attitude towards it is the most important part, and you will pull through with no deficiency. Just don't abuse the repair process, the body has evolved forever or has been made to be this resilient.
 
Unfortunately in the pursuit of pro audio, we will never find extreme-level limiting circuitry added onto these amps. What happens when an amp fails and a cap discharges right into the driver of an extremely well fitting and high-excursion headphone? Or simply something running at 1/20 the volume max has a short across the resistor/pot limiting it there? Especially with some noisy metal or something. While laser forums have constant discussion, there will never be sound protectors as far as audio goes. At least it is much harder to have this happen...
 
Edit:
Along the lines of a following post, any vitamins, mostly fat-solubles will help a lot. A, D, E and K, and C is cheap and easy to get in large amounts. Avoid artificially-sweetened C tablets, that crap (sucralose, Acesulfame-potassium, sodium cyclamate) will neutralize half the efficacy of it. Take with food.

 

[Solude]

One, two seconds is a long time to not notice a loud sound.  That said 2s of sound levels the D2000 can produce shouldn't damage anything.

 

[Audio-Omega]

May be you should stay away from using headphones until your ear has recovered.

 

[eucariote]

If you've caused cell damage in the organ of corti, and have continued inflamation/irritation you may slightly reduce cell loss in the damaged area from oxidative damage by taking vitamin E (potent scavenger of reactive oxygen).  Sounds strange, but experiments show that it can reduce certain molecular cascades leading to neuron death following brain trauma and help preserve function.
 
You can read all about it here and here.

 

[daremedy]

Thank you to all who took the time to reply.
 
Unfortunately almost 3 weeks later I am still suffering pain in my left ear - the issue seems to be pain and mild tinnitus rather than actual hearing loss. I am worried  that the incident may have caused hyperacusis.
 
Solus - thanks for taking the time to reply but I think I should clarify some things re: your post:
 
1) I never said that I didn't notice the noise for 2 seconds.  I said I heard the noise for about 2 seconds as that was how long it took me to switch the noise off.  As the volume control was broken and I wasn't sure which way to turn to reduce the noise it took a few seconds.
 
2)  They werem't D2000s but D5000s - rather more powerful.  Plus the music was coming through a Concerto at full volume with maximum gain.
 
I've read some people can get damage from a single shotgun blast close to the ear...believe me the bass was loud like a shotgun blast.
 
At the moment I am feeling both scared (about the possible damage to my left ear) and angry that I was put in this situtation.
 
Doctor I saw has not helped - am going to see another specialist next week.
 
 

 

[sridhar3]

You'll need an audiologist or somebody who can do an audiometry to assess the level of damage.  Unfortunately, as far as I know, aside from several small trials, there are no larger evidence-based double-blinded randomized controlled trials demonstrating efficacious therapeutic regimens.  Some people heal spontaneously over time, others don't.  Just don't irritate the ear with foreign bodies (i.e. cleaning implements), and stay away from headphones.  Sounds stupid, but avoid noxious otic stimuli.
 
k00zk0 mentioned fat-soluble vitamins in large quantities.  Be careful, as ingestion of large amounts of Vitamins A and E can result in overdose.  A Vitamin A overdose can lead to symptoms of increased intracranial pressure, such as vomiting, headache and other neurological manifestations, while Vitamin E overdose can cause vague constitutional symptoms, such as fatigue, malaise and diarrhea.