[tbish]

Today, I discovered a small company called Asius Technologies. They claim to make an earbud that doesn't cause ear damage. They also claim that earbuds cause more damage than over-ear/on-ear headphones.
 
I was under the impression that sound was the same (air pressure) regardless of what was driving it and that volume was the most important factor when listening safely. Am I wrong? Am I really damaging my ears by listening to in-ear headphones even at moderate levels?
 
Any insight would be welcome here.
 
Source: http://asiustechnologies.com/tech

 

[MindsMirror]

I don't believe that ear buds that seal your ear canal would create thousands of times greater pressure than normal as is claimed on the website. The pressure generated in the ear is what humans perceive as loudness. It would only create a thousand times more pressure than normal if the user intentionally set them to sound a thousand times louder. The website is marketing a solution for a problem that doesn't exist. Creating a seal with your ear bud will create more acoustic pressure than when they are not sealed. But this would only be a problem if people set the volume of their earbuds based on how loud they are before they are sealed in their ears. No one does that. People set the volume based on how loud they are as they listen to them.
 
People may have a habit of setting the loudness higher when using earbuds than with sealed over-ear headphones due to the ear buds providing less noise isolation, or when using earbuds vs speakers due to the lack of awareness and concern for other people and sounds, so people who use earbuds may habitually cause themselves more hearing damage. I do not believe it is due to the earbud creating a seal in your ear. If you set the volume responsibly, you should be fine regardless of what you listen to.

 

[ClieOS]

I think there is a kind of silliness in trying to make an IEM sounds 'louder yet still safe' when the correct safe practice should have been 'getting used to enjoy your music at a lower and totally safe volume'. It is like we all are being told that speeding kills, yet this one guy comes along and tell you: 'You know what - I have this set of tyres that will raise your survival rate in speeding...', where the right way is just to drive well within the speed limit. That should have been what IEM does - isolates external noise so you can enjoy music in a lower volume, and thus don't have to worry if you are pushing the volume too loud nor start thinking of using some gadget to fix a problem you created for yourself.

 

[tbish]

That's what I figured. I could tell that Asius's claim about having a "safe" IEM was bogus. Loud volume listening will hurt regardless of what is driving the air. The reason I brought it up here is that it seems to be a common misconception among people. I even know someone IRL who believes this and will never try IEMs because of it.
 
Could the misconception about it be because IEMs are typically more sensitive and are thus louder at the same volume setting from the device?

 

[DjBobby]

  That's what I figured. I could tell that Asius's claim about having a "safe" IEM was bogus. Loud volume listening will hurt regardless of what is driving the air. The reason I brought it up here is that it seems to be a common misconception among people. I even know someone IRL who believes this and will never try IEMs because of it.
 
Could the misconception about it be because IEMs are typically more sensitive and are thus louder at the same volume setting from the device?

We are hearing with the whole ear, including the external part of the ear called pinna. "Many mammals can move the pinna (with the auriculares muscles) in order to focus their hearing in a certain direction in much the same way that they can turn their eyes." The humans can't do that, but it is obvious that the outer part of the ear plays a role in directing the sound, as probably adding some coloring. Using only the inner canal for listening as with IEMs, probably strips part of the listening spectrum, causing to turn the volume louder to compensate the part which is "missing". 

 

[ClieOS]

 
We are hearing with the whole ear, including the external part of the ear called pinna. "Many mammals can move the pinna (with the auriculares muscles) in order to focus their hearing in a certain direction in much the same way that they can turn their eyes." The humans can't do that, but it is obvious that the outer part of the ear plays a role in directing the sound, as probably adding some coloring. Using only the inner canal for listening as with IEMs, probably strips part of the listening spectrum, causing to turn the volume louder to compensate the part which is "missing". 

 
Actually that isn't entirely true because any decent company would have already compensated its IEM's frequency response for HRFT during R&D.

 

[castleofargh]

it's probably a system like the adel stuff of 1984ears. http://www.1964adel.com/  it's a realistic idea, but I'm not sure it's the way to go at it.
my personal experience with IEMs tells me that the only safe way to listen to music is quietly, and to do so the best weapon is and always will be isolation from external noises.
I consistently listen to music about 10db lower(feels like half as loud) on my etymotics than on my IE80, because when on the street and some cars pass by or people shout.. with the IE80 I don't hear music anymore, I hear the car. so I rise the volume to cover the car and tend stay there even when external silence comes back. with the etymotics and the much better isolation I get from them, to cover the cars, I don't need to go as loud. that's saving my ears right there!
 
all in all, we've discussed this when talking about the adel stuff and tinnitus, but a fullsize headphone never isolates as well as a good IEM, so even if what they talk about is true under some circumstances(I use foam tips so over-pressure has little chances of staying in my canal for long as there isn't a real total seal anyway, maybe I sould sell my own revolution, the foam tip ^_^), I feel that the fullsize headphone not covering enough external noises would need to be pushed louder, that in itself would trigger the increased dampening of the eardrum forcing us to rise the volume level again to compensate the loss of sensitivity. so at the end of the day, it's all very much the same.
what matters is to be aware of our environment and refrain from trying to cover up every noises with music. as ClieOS said, for safe listening, nothing beats low level listening.

 

[higbvuyb]

it's probably a system like the adel stuff of 1984ears. http://www.1964adel.com/  it's a realistic idea, but I'm not sure it's the way to go at it.


my personal experience with IEMs tells me that the only safe way to listen to music is quietly, and to do so the best weapon is and always will be isolation from external noises.


I consistently listen to music about 10db lower(feels like half as loud) on my etymotics than on my IE80, because when on the street and some cars pass by or people shout.. with the IE80 I don't hear music anymore, I hear the car. so I rise the volume to cover the car and tend stay there even when external silence comes back. with the etymotics and the much better isolation I get from them, to cover the cars, I don't need to go as loud. that's saving my ears right there!


 


all in all, we've discussed this when talking about the adel stuff and tinnitus, but a fullsize headphone never isolates as well as a good IEM, so even if what they talk about is true under some circumstances(I use foam tips so over-pressure has little chances of staying in my canal for long as there isn't a real total seal anyway, maybe I sould sell my own revolution, the foam tip ^_^), I feel that the fullsize headphone not covering enough external noises would need to be pushed louder, that in itself would trigger the increased dampening of the eardrum forcing us to rise the volume level again to compensate the loss of sensitivity. so at the end of the day, it's all very much the same.


what matters is to be aware of our environment and refrain from trying to cover up every noises with music. as ClieOS said, for safe listening, nothing beats low level listening.

 


It's the same: http://www.1964adel.com/detail

ClieOS is right - in the end it's the level that's the most important. What this research is really saying is that their experimental membrane X gives you the same perceived loudness at lower overall levels than the control, making their earphone 'safer' when the user dials in the right perceived loudness.

The flaw in their reasoning seems to be that their experimental modification substantially changes the FR by reducing the bass by like 10 dB. If perceived loudness is weighted more towards the mids (not the bass), this means the change in FR itself is responsible for the result, not their special diaphonic membrane.

 

[Koolpep]

http://www.cnet.com/youre-doing-it-all-wrong/

Duh?

 

[DjBobby]

http://www.cnet.com/youre-doing-it-all-wrong/

Duh?

Thanks for the link. Could not agree more. If I could have convinced my kids earlier.

 

[castleofargh]

http://www.cnet.com/youre-doing-it-all-wrong/

Duh?

oversimplified IMO. they kind of talk with all things considered equal while showing stupid earbuds which are certainly super bad because they have no isolation at all so we can't use them quietly in a noisy place. to me they're clearly the most dangerous choice.
and for their conclusion, over the ear headphone usually don't isolate as well as IEMs, so again they're very right all things considered equal, except they're not. on a plane trying the QC15(so with added noise canceling) vs etymotic hf5, I still felt the hf5 isolated more and let me listen at lower loudness.
now of course there are a great many IEMs that have poor isolation, so I find it pretty bad to try and draw generalizations about IEM vs fullsize.