[DanD]

I just found out today my lawnmower is rated at 76 dB. Before that I don't know how loud 76 dB is. 76 dB is very loud. I wore ear plug and I can still hear it. I can't hear anyone talking when that lawnmower is on even if I take the ear plug off.

Normally when I listen to headphones or speakers, I can still hear people talking to me and I can coverse with them. And with headphones, I can still hear the fan of my computer humming quitely or my monitor buzzing ever so slightly. Beside those two my room is rather quite.

So I think I am listening at around 50-60 dB. Maybe even less. Is that what one consider listening at low volume or do you guys consider 70-80 dB low volume ? One of this day I'll get SPL and check it to be sure.

Any way I use the eq of my player to make sure I can here everything and everything sounded good. I think I haven't got hearing loss yet.

 

[dwilson9@tiscali]

A recent test by a consultant audiologist in Cambridge told me my left hearing is average whilst my right hearing is above average for my age. I always use ear plugs in noisy environments like concerts as extreme noise always makes my ears ring for a day or so. I use IEMs mainly and set the volume at just sufficient to hear the music. I've long thought that the quality of the music affects your hearing. By that I mean if what you hear is full range and meets your expectation of detail and tone, then you have no desire to overcompensate by increasing the volume. I always (until I knew better) did this with early iPods (unamped) as there was never enough bass.

Hearing is precious - look after it.

 

[scompton]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Greeni /img/forum/go_quote.gif Thank you for the insight. I was advised essentially the same thing, with the exception that in a quiet enviroment open heaphones are less susceptible to hearing loss than closed headphone, because it allows better dissipation of sound pressure. Also electrostatic. Make sense ?

It only makes sense to me if you always leave the volume knob at the same position no matter what headphone you use. But people don't do that. It's the SPL on your ear drum that matters no matter how that SPL is produced. If you use a headphone that leaks a lot of it's sound, you'll have a lower SPL at any given volume level, but most people will turn up the volume to get the same SPL.

Some people listen to stats too loud. In general it's people who listen for distortion when determining how loud to listen. IMO that's a bad way to tell how loud you're listening because you're probably listening too loud by the time you hear distortion in low end equipment. The only exception to this would be if you have severely mismatched equipment, like trying to drive hard to drive headphones directly from an iPod.

Quote:

Originally Posted by DanD /img/forum/go_quote.gif I just found out today my lawnmower is rated at 76 dB. Before that I don't know how loud 76 dB is. 76 dB is very loud. I wore ear plug and I can still hear it. I can't hear anyone talking when that lawnmower is on even if I take the ear plug off.

If it's truly 76dB, you should be able to hear people talking. They might have to talk loud, but you should be able to hear them. Unless it's electric, it's hard to believe that it's only 76dB and most electric lawn mowers are louder. My neighbor has one that is every bit as loud as a gasoline powered one. My guess would be that even the old non powered reel mowers reach 76dB when in use.