Tshiknn
Head-Fier
Yup, and it's very distressing for me as I'm 25 and it's audible over most background noise because of how high-pitched it is (15-17kHz). The thought that I will be dealing with this for the rest of my life still often throws me although I've had it for about 10 years at this point.
I'm going to throw a hypothesis out there that anyone can disagree with or not: audiophiles and musicians tend to have a higher incidence of tinnitus not because of widespread hearing loss (although it's probably true that hearing loss incidence is higher with us than with most of the population) but because we pay attention much more closely to our hearing than others, and can end up zoning in on parasitic parts of our own auditory processing as a result. In effect, because we've trained ourselves to hear anything and everything, we unfortunately end up hearing artifacts of our own brain.
I know I have very mild unilateral hearing loss in my right ear as a result of practicing loud music with insufficient hearing protection, and this does cause tinnitus, which sounds like a sort of scratchy high-frequency sound sort of like the sound of a bad vacuum tube, very quiet and inaudible most of the time. Then there is an additional "subjective" tinnitus that can be audible as a powerful, very loud ringing - this is usually in the presence of background noise, and seems to vary based on my psychological state, i.e., it's much louder when I'm focusing on it (which is not an easy habit to stop), due to stress or otherwise. Very quiet masking sound, on the order of 20-30dB for the relevant frequencies, can usually render this inaudible, indicating that it has an actual volume of around 20-30 dB or so, but in situations without a lot going on above 10kHz (i.e. most settings, lol) it can be distressingly loud. So paradoxically it is subjectively quieter in quieter settings.
Research on tinnitus seems to support the hypothesis that a very mild hearing loss-induced tinnitus can be amplified as a result of one's own distress regarding the state of one's hearing. The solution, of course, is to simply not pay attention to it - but this is easier said than done, especially for those of us who really care about our hearing. It also supports the possibility that a subjective kind of tinnitus can be present with no hearing loss at all, which was certainly true for me up to the point where I started to have hearing loss. But a ringing that seems to vary based on mood, volume of surroundings, etc. is probably more dependent on psychology than not, for however much it's worth to you sufferers out there. To me, it's a small comfort to know that a re-framing of my psychology could potentially go a long way toward mitigating my tinnitus, even if such a re-framing isn't necessarily easy or immediately possible.
For what it's worth, this YouTube channel is the best resource I've found for tinnitus information. There's way too much BS out there, but the perspectives this guy presents seem to be very level-headed: https://www.youtube.com/@benthompsonaud/
I'm going to throw a hypothesis out there that anyone can disagree with or not: audiophiles and musicians tend to have a higher incidence of tinnitus not because of widespread hearing loss (although it's probably true that hearing loss incidence is higher with us than with most of the population) but because we pay attention much more closely to our hearing than others, and can end up zoning in on parasitic parts of our own auditory processing as a result. In effect, because we've trained ourselves to hear anything and everything, we unfortunately end up hearing artifacts of our own brain.
I know I have very mild unilateral hearing loss in my right ear as a result of practicing loud music with insufficient hearing protection, and this does cause tinnitus, which sounds like a sort of scratchy high-frequency sound sort of like the sound of a bad vacuum tube, very quiet and inaudible most of the time. Then there is an additional "subjective" tinnitus that can be audible as a powerful, very loud ringing - this is usually in the presence of background noise, and seems to vary based on my psychological state, i.e., it's much louder when I'm focusing on it (which is not an easy habit to stop), due to stress or otherwise. Very quiet masking sound, on the order of 20-30dB for the relevant frequencies, can usually render this inaudible, indicating that it has an actual volume of around 20-30 dB or so, but in situations without a lot going on above 10kHz (i.e. most settings, lol) it can be distressingly loud. So paradoxically it is subjectively quieter in quieter settings.
Research on tinnitus seems to support the hypothesis that a very mild hearing loss-induced tinnitus can be amplified as a result of one's own distress regarding the state of one's hearing. The solution, of course, is to simply not pay attention to it - but this is easier said than done, especially for those of us who really care about our hearing. It also supports the possibility that a subjective kind of tinnitus can be present with no hearing loss at all, which was certainly true for me up to the point where I started to have hearing loss. But a ringing that seems to vary based on mood, volume of surroundings, etc. is probably more dependent on psychology than not, for however much it's worth to you sufferers out there. To me, it's a small comfort to know that a re-framing of my psychology could potentially go a long way toward mitigating my tinnitus, even if such a re-framing isn't necessarily easy or immediately possible.
For what it's worth, this YouTube channel is the best resource I've found for tinnitus information. There's way too much BS out there, but the perspectives this guy presents seem to be very level-headed: https://www.youtube.com/@benthompsonaud/
