[Brad H Tims]

For daily listening I try to keep volumes down as much as possible, but "treat" myself to higher volumes on certain days or when I'm particularly feeling the music. Full blast all the time is not good for you ears.

 

[oqvist]

Full blast is never good

 

[rafo]

Some of the devices for EU actually have safe limits built-in. If you are not using and amp of course. Try sound isolating IEMs, those will help you decrease the volume by isolating outside noise.

 

[theminstrel]

I'm pretty unusual in that I've gotten into high fidelity Headphones mainly because I want to preserve good detail, natural tonality & clarity at medium to low listening levels that don't cause me anything like discomfort, let alone hearing damage.
Also, I prefer listening to hard Rock & Metal on "darker" headphones as it subtracts some of the excess treble screeching and allows me to better hear "through" the track. Anyone else like me.

 

[serman005]

I grew up playing in rock bands. We played not infrequently at insane decibel levels. Foolish, youthful hubris. Scroll ahead twenty years and I now have moderate tinnitus. It is present whenever I am awake and is worse as the day wears on. For some reason, my left ear is more affected than the right. I now listen to my headphones in the mid-seventies decibels most of the time and I am able to enjoy the music greatly. But I am very, very cautious with listening levels. As @Brooko has alluded to, you only get one chance with your hearing.

 

[Trihexagonal]

...I now have moderate tinnitus. It is present whenever I am awake and is worse as the day wears on. For some reason, my left ear is more affected than the right.

I'm "fortunate" enough that the noise level is the same in both ears. It must be awful for it to be louder in one ear than the other.

Mine sounds like anything from the combination of a buzzing and ringing sound to a wavering sound exactly what cicada sound like when they're out. In the summer I can never tell if it's them or just me.

 

[wuwhere]

Just below the threshold of pain.

 

[SilverEars]

What really surprised me was the how loud the people in a meet was listening to their headphones. I had to turn the volume down a great portion when it was my turn. I don't know if this hobby is contributing to people pushing higher and higher volumes since it's headphones(very near field) and exposed to loudness levels greater period of time than the avg. I really want to be safe about this as I don't want permanent hearing damage! Hearing is the vary reason I'm in this hobby and I don't want to degrade it. Quality and accuracy of what you hear depends on the quality of your hearing primarily.

 

[wuwhere]

Sometimes I listen to my 007 loud. The only way for me to know that it is very is when I lay it down to walk to the fridge and I can hear it across the room like a small speaker. Its so clean to listen to very loud without any fatigue.

 

[SilverEars]

No piercing treble? Punchiness that really pushes it? That's a problem with headphones like the HD800. Piercing treble when the track has punchiness, and that cannot be good for hearing, and it keeps you from raising the volume for the rest of the frequencies. I heard that 009 can be a bit thin sounding with treble emphasis. It's not fatiguing? With such descriptions I would have assumed it would be. When people speak of high-end highly resolving headphones they mean forward treble(boosted treble) to push details in your face, and for those tunes, they get fatiguing with various tracks.

 

[wuwhere]

No piercing treble? Punchiness that really pushes it? That's a problem with headphones like the HD800. Piercing treble when the track has punchiness, and that cannot be good for hearing, and it keeps you from raising the volume for the rest of the frequencies. I heard that 009 can be a bit thin sounding with treble emphasis. It's not fatiguing? With such descriptions I would have assumed it would be. When people speak of high-end highly resolving headphones they mean forward treble(boosted treble) to push details in your face, and for those tunes, they get fatiguing with various tracks.

Not with Stax SR-007 MK1, on KGST tube amp with Exogal Comet DAC and Cardas Golden Presence IC.

 

[wuwhere]

I also have a HiFiMan HE-6 on tube speaker amp, it can be fatiguing, but has incredible bass. But it can't match the Stax's transparency.

 

[richard51]

I had bought a sound level meter used for 20 bucks,some months ago, and I dont regret it.... I trained my ears to recognize the 80 db limit and train myself to listen under it....Very easy if you measure your db at each session for few weeks....Music had nothing to do with intensity of the sound level and that will destruct your hearing...