Hi everyone! 
As the thread says, can you please help me with my question: "How much distortion is too much?"
You see, I love distorted music (yes) - but I'm starting to get quite worried about my headphones. I definitely do not have the sound-knowledge to be able to determine whether my listening-habits potentially could damage them in the long run, or not. And furthermore, if my hearing could get worse over time from listening to it. It's not like I am listening at extremely loud levels, but the music is made to sound
very distorted. I know that distortion caused by loud volumes is by all means quite dangerous,
but it can't be that bad if it's already "programmed" into the song? Right? I mean - if you play it at normal volumes? Or am I slowly destroying them? Can you please give me some guidance?
Here's an example of what I like to listen to (it's one of my favorites):
Album on Bandcamp. (Turn down the volume if you're not used to this kind of music).
Thank you!!
A distortion pedal or overdrive on the amp head is not the same kind of distortion on a speaker or headphone amplifier nor does that kind of distortion have any direct link to ear health.
When a distortion pedal distorts a guitar's sound that's what's in the music. You can listen to that same music using an amplifier that has 0.0001% THD+N and it will still sound better compared to an amp with non-euphonic (in which case it's debatable) 1% THD+N. In short, you can listen to Metallica, Dream Theater, Epica, etc etc on a $10,000 speaker and drive it with a $15,000 amp if you want to.
Distortion in playback is just mucking with the recorded music you're listening to. The extreme levels of distortion from a Boss Metal Zone can sound good (no, I don't care how much people hate it, you have to tune the guitar lower - it's when you don't drop that it sounds like a weird fuzz pedal), and you can listen to a recording made with that pedal feeding into a head with that guitarist's favorite tubes using a headphone or speaker amp that has 0.0001% THD+N and it can be enjoyable (so long as you're not looking for euphonic 0.5% THD+N, of which most of it is distortion and nearly no actual noise unless you tap the speaker/headphone amp tubes). By contrast it won't matter if you're listening to an Acoustic Audiophile Voices album or a Slayer album, if you play that through one of those $20 motorcycle amplifiers (no, really) with who knows how much actual THD+N (because you can't trust what the box says, nor does anyone that won't bother to even test these crappy amps) driving some $5 speaker driver that isn't even anywhere near what you can get from Dayton or TangBand even for that price (shipping to the countries where people have loud AF motorcycle audio is prohibitive though),
it will suck.
I mean...I listen to Metallica, Epica, Nightwish, Kamelot, Dream Theater, Greyhoundz, Wolfgang, etc, using a DAP with a clean 1.8V output into a Meier Cantate.2 and a 300ohm (so zero issues with impedance for nearly all decent amps) HD600 headphones.
And no, normal distortion implemented by musicians will not damage your hearing nor the drivers either. Your hearing will be damaged by excessive SPL, so it wouldn't matter if it's a Meier Cantate.2 cranked full driving a HiFiMan HE400S (it's higher sensitivity and lower impedance, so it'll go even louder than the HD600; driver distortion is probably lower too since it's a newer planar design) or that crappy Third World Numbnuts On An Underbone Motorcyle With A Loud Sound System, sustained 90dB+++ at your ears (because it can be 90dB at the motorcycle, but if you stay away it can only be 80dB as it drives past; unlike the idiot riding it the entire time listening to some crappy heartbroken rapper) will destroy your ears eventually. If anything, a
too clean system will destroy the ears of somebody with better tastes as much as that idiot on the underbone bike will destroy his with a crap system, because your taste will only avoid how distorted the playback is...but on a cleaner system you'll just end up thinking "meh, it's not too loud" based on "it doesn't sound effed up yet." So maybe you won't get to sustained 90dB++, but sustained 85dB all day is still bad.
As for drivers what will destroy them is clipping and overheating. And clipping is far more likely you cranking it up and making your amp clip than whoever you're listening to programming the music to make most systems clip on normal listening with a decent amplification circuit for whatever driver is hooked up to it. Overheating isn't really a thing either...I mean you'd have to run 1000w subwoofers in a car parked under the sun without A/C on to actually bust anything, and chances are subs designed to do that wouldn't even break easily either since they're designed for sustained high SPL performance. That doesn't any other driver will just succumb to heat either because unless you're stupid and/or have enough compacted earwax and are overcompensating for it you're likely to pull back the dial or take a break before you actually get to this point (unless your breaks involve cranking it up now that you're not wearing them).
