[Zanders]

I curious about how easy it is to damage headphone speakers by playing music very loudly in to them.
 
 
Just a couple of days ago I told a family member of mine that my headphones had a really good bass sound, and that I could hand them to him to let him test them for a moment, but when I did he jumped to some video on youtube of somebody's extremely bassed out sound system and cranked the volume up to max on my headphones. It lasted about three seconds until I noticed what he was doing and then snatched them away from him. Would that have done any damage to the sound?

 

[dsowner]

Weird. The same thing happened to my headphones with my cousins just yesterday. Hopefully I get an answer as well.

 

[Zanders]

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Weird. The same thing happened to my headphones with my cousins just yesterday. Hopefully I get an answer as well.

That's a shame. I guess this is something that a lot of people are doing now, for some reason.
 
 
To make it more specific, the headphones I have are ATH-M50s. I don't notice any really damaged sound, but I've only had these headphones for a couple of days and got to listen to them for a couple of hours before then.

 

[BobSaysHi]

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Weird. The same thing happened to my headphones with my cousins just yesterday. Hopefully I get an answer as well.

That's a shame. I guess this is something that a lot of people are doing now, for some reason.
 
 
To make it more specific, the headphones I have are ATH-M50s. I don't notice any really damaged sound, but I've only had these headphones for a couple of days and got to listen to them for a couple of hours before then.

Have you listened to them? If you damaged them, don't you think you'd be able to hear it?

 

[Lazarus Short]

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Have you listened to them? If you damaged them, don't you think you'd be able to hear it?

I wonder if the "family member" would?  

 

[BobSaysHi]

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Have you listened to them? If you damaged them, don't you think you'd be able to hear it?

I wonder if the "family member" would?  

Definitely not. 

 

[9pintube]

I'd Be more worried about my EAR DAMAGE (hearing) if you put them on without knowing someone had cranked your Vol. on your Headphones up way to loud and you had to rip them from your ears......I hope that didn't happen to you........Like eyes, you only get 2 ears.......IMO, always wear hearing protection while working with loud tools, concerts, etc.etc........your cans should be alright......

 

[faileas]

Depends on your source. I had one particular pair of headphones i used to plug into a laptop, turn up the volume the whole way, and use as speakers, and they were fine (back before i knew better - they eventually died due to an abortive modding attempt). Considering they are plugged into HEADPHONE jacks, unless something is screwy as hell, i wouldn't think the output would be loud enough to damage headphones.

 

[logwed]

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Depends on your source. I had one particular pair of headphones i used to plug into a laptop, turn up the volume the whole way, and use as speakers, and they were fine (back before i knew better - they eventually died due to an abortive modding attempt). Considering they are plugged into HEADPHONE jacks, unless something is screwy as hell, i wouldn't think the output would be loud enough to damage headphones.

 
Depends on how much power you're putting through them (amplifier, not source 

). Playing headphones at extreme volume for an extended period of time can cause damage, but you'd be surprised at how resilient most headphones are. If anything, your friend would damage his ears before he damages the headphones.

 

[BobSaysHi]

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If anything, your friend would damage his ears before he damages the headphones.

x2. I use my grados as speakers.

 

[logwed]

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x2. I use my grados as speakers.

John Grado actually made a set of speakers using a bunch of RS-1 drivers, IIRC.
 
(It might have been Joe, and it might have been a different Grado driver, but there were Grado headphone driver speakers made by someone... 

)

 

[nivrethejugg]

I thought people burned their headphones in by blasting to a certain extent and they mentioned that they sounded better at normal levels afterwards

 

[khaos974]

It depends on the model of the headphones, some models have been tested at 4,000 mW, the lowest limit seems to to around 100 mW for full size headphones.

 

[Aworrier]

Would It Do Any Hearing Damage?