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Originally Posted by catscratch /img/forum/go_quote.gif
"Volume half way" doesn't tell anybody anything. It all depends on sound card, amp, headphone, etc. So, I'll hold off any judgements on how loud you're listening.
I haven't noticed any tinnitus immediately caused by my HD650s, but I did give myself tinnitus with the Stax SR-001 system, which is notoriously loud. What made matters worse was that it was also extremely smooth and free from any kind of distortion whatsoever, so there really was very little to clue you in to how loud you were listening.
I've since lowered the volume on my music, and I'm now horrified when I go back to some of my previous listening volumes. They sound downright painful. Damn, was I really listening this loud?
My tinnitus has actually improved lately. I still think I listen way too loud, but I compensate by reducing listening time. I never have music in the background; I only listen when I'm willing to dedicate all of my attention to the music. The net result is that I enjoy my music more, and my ears are ringing less, even when I do blast it full force.
The point of it all is, either reduce the volume, cut down the listening time, or simply take a break for a few weeks and let your ears recover. I doubt the HD650 is to blame.
Also, talk to an audiologist. I'm not an expert and my opinion really doesn't matter.
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Great points, but what worries me here is that just the classical music on it's own is probably worth about 25 dB reduction average (RMS) SPL. Just about all my classical music files have an average level of around 20 - 25 dB less than popular music - if I had increased the recording level any more than that I would go into digital clipping on the peaks. And I don't feel that these near 0 dB peaks - which might total a few seconds at best - over the course of an entire symphony - are going to cause problems any more than dropping cutlery into the cutlery tray during the evening washing up.
But I found my HD580s caused my tinnitus to worsen as well - and that was only with relatively short listening periods (say 20 minutes) at levels around 80 - 83 dB dB "c" weighted RMS (would be even less "a" weighted) - way below what you get in the concert hall at a symphony concert.
Since the majority of people don't emerge from classical concerts with tinnitus symptoms (and I never did), it starts me wondering.
I don't really believe the blanket rules that some subscribe to in that headphones cause tinnitus and it's as simple as that. But if my own experience is anything to go by, I seem to have had much more tinnitus aggravation issues with full sized headphones than I have with IEMs and I don't think this has a direct relationship with isolation properties, since I measure the SPLs exactly the same either way and regardless of design.
I'm using PXC350s at the moment and thus far I feel I can say they are a more "tinnitus friendly" than any other full size phone I have tried. It's been a while since I have used an IEM for serious classical listening, but I don't recall noticing an aggravation of my tinnitus when I used my old Shures and UM2.
I'm thinking of getting a pair of IE7s when they come out, if only to experiment to see how they might effect my tinnitus compared to other designs.
PS: I should add that no one knows why I have chronic tinnitus. My hearing was tested as perfect and scans of my ears, etc are perfect too. I have had it since suffering a bad respiratory virus and infection at the beginning of last year. And I had this tinnitus long before I ever donned headphones (bought my first headphones about 4 months after I got tinnitus) - infact I had been listening to music for 12 years on a small clock radio that was set at about 60 dB maximum. I'm of the generation where the first headphone devices were analogue cassette walkmans - I bought one back in the 1980s but hardly ever listened to it.
PS: I reckon what we all need for starters are SPL meters that can measure with absolutely no weighting at all. I want to see what is coming out of these phones "flat". For example, a ful sized phone might have a more powerful very low bass, but how would one ever know (by "know" I mean by objective figures on a piece of paper as opposed to a subjective opinion) when even a "c" weighting curve has a significant roll off at low (and to a lesser extent high) frequencies.
