[Germancub]

Hi everybody!

As many of you know, I have a pair of HD650s and love the way they sound. My problem lately has been that after listening (at very low volumes even) my ears ring and feel "hollow" if that makes any sense. I've had tinnitus for years, but never had a headphone do this to me at low volumes. Anybody else ever experience this with Sennheisers? I love these headphones so much but... man I don't know if I can deal with this.

The headphones that were the "easiest" on my ears were my K501's, I could listen to them all day long even at moderate levels without any ear fatigue or ringing. Something about their light, airy and open soundstage presentation made my ears happy. Perhaps it's the "dark" presentation or maybe dominant bass that's doing something to me... as much as it's fun and I love the way it sounds, I might just need to return these and get some AKGs. Any input or advice would be greatly appreciated!

 

[seacard]

I think that means someone is talking about you. Or is "why are my ears burning?" Always confuse those two.

 

[tenzip]

Go to the doctor. Go straight to an audiologist if possible, otherwise get a referral from your regular physician.

 

[Germancub]

While I appreciate your concern, it goes away after about 20 minute of not listening to them. If I listen to any other headphones the problem does not present itself. So I think maybe it's just a problem with synergy between the way my ears hear and the way the HD650 presents it. *sigh* such a shame too i love these things

 

[ph0rk]

Perhaps you are listening louder than you think. Do you have a dB meter?

 

[Punnisher]

Try to listen even lower volume levels, and don't listen for so long. Perhaps you're listening for longer sessions than in the past?

I think this was my issue in the past. I would listen to my headphones every waking hour when I was at home. My ears became accustomed to the constant sound and would hear ringing once removed. It wasn't the volume, but the prolonged exposure for many hours. I always listen at safe levels.

 

[HydraShok]

Causes
By Mayo Clinic staff
CLICK TO ENLARGE Tinnitus


A number of health conditions can cause or worsen tinnitus. In many cases, an exact cause is never found.

A common cause of tinnitus is inner ear cell damage. Tiny, delicate hairs in your inner ear move in relation to the pressure of sound waves. This triggers ear cells to release an electrical signal through a nerve from your ear (auditory nerve) to your brain. Your brain interprets these signals as sound. If the hairs inside your inner ear are bent or broken, they can "leak" random electrical impulses to your brain, causing tinnitus.

Other causes of tinnitus include other ear problems, chronic health conditions, and injuries or conditions that affect your auditory nerves or the hearing center in your brain.

Common causes of tinnitus
In many people, tinnitus is caused by one of these conditions:

Age-related hearing loss. For many people hearing begins to worsen with age, usually starting around age 60. Loss of hearing can cause tinnitus. The medical term for this type of hearing loss is presbycusis.
Exposure to loud noise. Loud noises can damage your ability to hear. Heavy equipment, chain saws and firearms are common sources of noise-related hearing loss. Portable music devices, such as MP3 players or iPods, also can cause noise-related hearing loss if played loudly for long periods. While short-term exposure, such as attending a loud concert, usually causes tinnitus that goes away, long-term exposure to loud sound can cause permanent damage.
Earwax blockage. Earwax protects your ear canal by trapping dirt and slowing the growth of bacteria. However, when too much earwax accumulates it becomes too hard to wash away naturally (cerumenal impaction), causing tinnitus or problems with hearing.
Changes in ear bones. Stiffening of the bones in your middle ear (otosclerosis) may affect your hearing and cause tinnitus. This condition, caused by abnormal bone growth, runs in families.
Other causes of tinnitus
Some causes of tinnitus are less common. These include:

Meniere's disease, an inner ear disorder. Doctors think it's caused by abnormal inner ear fluid pressure or composition.
Stress and depression. This is an especially common diagnosis when hearing tests are normal and no other cause of tinnitus can be identified.
Head injuries or neck injuries. These neurological disorders affect nerves or brain function linked to hearing. Head or neck injuries generally cause tinnitus in only one ear.
Acoustic neuroma, a noncancerous (benign) tumor. Acoustic neuromas develop on the cranial nerve, which runs from your brain to your inner ear and controls balance and hearing. This condition is also called vestibular schwannoma. It generally causes tinnitus in only one ear.
Blood vessel disorders linked to tinnitus
In rare cases, tinnitus is caused by a blood vessel disorder. This type of tinnitus is called pulsatile tinnitus. Causes include:

Head and neck tumors. A tumor that presses on blood vessels in your head or neck (vascular neoplasm) can cause tinnitus and other symptoms.
Atherosclerosis. With age and buildup of cholesterol and other fatty deposits, major blood vessels close to your middle and inner ear lose some of their elasticity — the ability to flex or expand slightly with each heartbeat. That causes blood flow to become more forceful and sometimes more turbulent, making it easier for your ear to detect the beats. You can generally hear this type of tinnitus in both ears.
High blood pressure. Hypertension and factors that increase blood pressure, such as stress, alcohol and caffeine, can make tinnitus more noticeable. Repositioning your head usually causes the sound to disappear.
Turbulent blood flow. Narrowing or kinking in a neck artery (carotid artery) or vein in your neck (jugular vein) can cause turbulent blood flow, leading to tinnitus.
Malformation of capillaries. A condition called arteriovenous malformation (AVM), which occurs in the connections between arteries and veins, can result in tinnitus. This type of tinnitus generally occurs in only one ear.
Medications that can cause tinnitus
A number of medications may cause or worsen tinnitus. Generally, the higher the dose of medication you take, the worse tinnitus becomes. Often the unwanted noise disappears when you stop using these drugs. Medications known to cause or worsen tinnitus include:

Antibiotics, including chloramphenicol, erythromycin, tetracycline, vancomycin and bleomycin.
Cancer medications, including mechlorethamine and vincristine.
Diuretics — water pills — such as bumetanide, ethacrynic acid, furosemide.
Quinine medications used for malaria or other health conditions.
Chloroquine, a malaria medication.
Aspirin taken in uncommonly high doses (12 or more per day) may cause tinnitus.

 

[Germancub]

I'm certain that I'm listening at a much more sane level than most people do. I normally listen to music so low that I can barely hear it. I think you said it though maybe it's just because i'm constantly used to having noise in my ears that when nothing is present my ears just ring from being used to hearing something?.... Thank you all so much for all the help and the mayo clinic post!

So my question really is... is there something about the Sennheiser sound that would aggravate it more than other headphones would? Why doesn't this happen when I listen to other headphones at the same (or even higher) volume level??

 

[RushNerd]

lol I haven't had this problem since my freshman(high school) year with my Metallica tapes/walkman and cheap sony phones. I'd keep them on, full blast from the last class bell to the front door@home.

I tell ya, NO unamped portable device gets as loud as those old tape decks did, they were awesome.

 

[ADD]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Germancub /img/forum/go_quote.gif I'm certain that I'm listening at a much more sane level than most people do. I normally listen to music so low that I can barely hear it.

There is possibly one problem to begin with. If you are depriving yourself of a constant broad bandwidth audio stimulus (that you would get from simply being in a normal ambient environment), that in itself can significantly aggravate pre-existing tinnitus. Depending on the characteristics of your tinnitus (quality and frequency), I am not really suprised that listening quietly through headphones aggravates it. Doing that sort of thing day in and day out may eventually cause plasticity changes in your brain which will make the tinnitus even worse, even though you would not have any (further) measurable hearing loss.

That said, I agree with others in that you really need to get a sound meter and some sort of coupling device that can both create an acoustic seal and emulates at least to some extent the amplification of the ear canal. I'm not saying you need a professional coupler like an NBS-9A - I myself made a sealed coupling using PVC tubing and the lid of a Stax potato chips container (and plastic glue). It provides around 5 dB amplification compared to nothing at all when fed 52 dBA of broadband noise, however I do not have an SPL meter that can measure different octave bands to check how closely it models ear canal characteristics at different frequencies. It is for this reason I am always very conservative when taking my readings. But I do know it is much better than just sticking an SPL meter into a headphone or using cardboard / old CD as seals.

Additionally, you need to be vigilant of your overall sound pressure "dosage" over the course of a day. The industrial noise figures of LAeq,8=85 (85 dBA constant exposure over 8 hours) are in my opinion too high. The research published by the World Health Organisation recommends a maximum exposure average over a 24 hour period (LAeq,24) as 70 dBA, but they also state that an LAeq,24 of 64 dBA is the level at which absolutely no health problems are thus far associated with noise exposure.

When I used the appropriate audiology formulas and stuck my own "figures" into a spreadsheet, I was quite surprised how easy it is to get to those limits (LAeq,24=70 and especially LAeq,24=64), even if not listening to music. For many people, a typical day that might include travelling on public transport, walking around the city at lunch, etc - it is easy to get close to those limits even without the addition of dedicated music listening.

I do honestly think many headphone users would be extremely surprised at both the SPL they listen at and also with the overall noise exposure they experience each day.

The other thing to consider is that there is anecdotal reports here of other members experiencing tinnitus related to the HD650, so please perform a search and you will bring up some old threads.

For my own part and for what it is worth, I have found that my old PXC350 aggravated my tinnitus, but that neither my current PXC300 or CX300 do. I can't really explain precisely why that may be the case, however I do know that my listening levels are now lower than they were a year ago (I have specifically sought out equipment since then that works well at low volume, and the PXC300 with high quality solid state amplification is excellent in that respect). But even back then, my listening levels were technically perfectly "safe" under the accepted LAeq,8=85 standard, but not safe under the much more conservative World Health Organisation standards (I now use LAeq,24=64).

Also, my tinnitus is somatic in nature (amplified greatly when my chronic upper body and neck pain gets worse), and I guess it is possible that the featherweight PXC300 put less strain on my neck over the course of a long listening session than the very heavy PXC350 did).

If I were you, I would try to see if I could use a pair of IEM earphones as a substitute for a while (suggestions would be CX300 or IE7/IE8), and see if your tinnitus changes as compared to the HD650.

 

[notuagain]

I've had a similar situation with using most headphones, but for some reason the AKGs I have tried don't present the same problems of other makes.

It could be observed that AKGs are noted for not having an exceptional low end frequency coverage, so this could be relevant?

I say stick with what doesn't make your ears ring, because as you are probably already aware, tinnitus doesn't 'get better'...only worse.....pardon?

 

[kg21]

AKGs sound like good advice or maybe anything that is brighter and more detailed in general, that way you can really turn them down like your k501 but still get good sound. Dark and smooth are two characteristics that make it tempting to turn up the sound.

 

[jaymrobinson]

That happened to Beethoven before he lost his hearing.

 

[TheMarchingMule]

It's called tinnitus.

 

[Germancub]

Thank you everybody for the wonderful advice... I have decided to get the AKG K601 and try them out. K701's are overkill from what I've read given my equipment so I truly think they will make me happy. I also made an interesting observation; do you think perhaps it's the shape of the ear pad that could aggravate it? Reason I say this is I wore my HD650's for about 30 minutes the other day with nothing playing through them (I know it sounds lame) but just for an experiment, and I experienced the same feeling of "hollowness" and ringing. Maybe it's putting pressure on a pressure point that my ears just don't like???