# Ipods, ear buds and hearing loss
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ipods-ear-buds-and-hearing-loss/591954
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [August 8, 2011, 4:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ipods-ear-buds-and-hearing-loss/591954 "2011-08-08T16:00:09Z")
**Posts on this page:** 10
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@El\_Zagna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/El_Zagna)
#### Post date: [August 8, 2011, 4:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ipods-ear-buds-and-hearing-loss/591954/1 "2011-08-08T16:00:09Z")
I lost my Ipod about a year ago, and now I’d like to get a replacement. I’ve got a couple of questions first.
1. Today’s cell phones and other devices are capable of storing and playing back music. Is the Ipod on its way to obsolescence? If so, what’s the new technology for music listening?
2. I’m 61 and starting to notice the first signs of hearing loss. Is there any difference in the amount of hearing damage related to the type of speaker, e.g., standard headphones vs. ear buds vs regular speakers?
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### Author:  [@anson2995](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/anson2995)
#### Post date: [August 8, 2011, 6:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ipods-ear-buds-and-hearing-loss/591954/2 "2011-08-08T18:04:59Z")
> [@El\_Zagna](#):
>
> 1. Today’s cell phones and other devices are capable of storing and playing back music. Is the Ipod on its way to obsolescence?
Depends on what you mean. The iPod as a device that is only used to play music (and video) is rapidly becoming obsolete. The iPod touch (which is essentially an iPhone without the phone) accounts for more than half of iPods sold this year, a figure that’s only going to grow. The move to cloud storage, along with content streaming services like Spotify and Pandora also make it more likely than the stand alone mp3 player will disappear. There may be a market for micro devices, like the Nano and the Shuffle, both for size and cost reasons. But the masses will continue to migrate towards the pocket computer, aka the smartphone.
> [@El\_Zagna](#):
>
> 1. I’m 61 and starting to notice the first signs of hearing loss. Is there any difference in the amount of hearing damage related to the type of speaker, e.g., standard headphones vs. ear buds vs regular speakers?
A google search will turn up about a billion articles, but I think the consensus is that the risk of hearing damage has to do with the volume you’re listening to rather than the type of headphone. [Time Magazine’s article](http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1827159,00.html) offers a pretty good overview.
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### Author:  [@El\_Zagna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/El_Zagna)
#### Post date: [August 8, 2011, 7:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ipods-ear-buds-and-hearing-loss/591954/3 "2011-08-08T19:38:51Z")
Thanks **anson**. Does the quality of sound differ from device to device. Would you expect an Ipod, which is designed specifically for music, to deliver better quality sound than a mobile device designed for a multitude of purposes?
I googled this before I posted the question, and I agree about the consensus that it mainly has to do with volume. I’m still trying to find something about differences in where and how the sound comes out.
I’m also wondering if better quality sound systems are less damaging to the ears. My thinking is that if there is less distortion you may tend to listen at a lower volume.
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### Author:  [@MissJaxx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MissJaxx)
#### Post date: [August 8, 2011, 7:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ipods-ear-buds-and-hearing-loss/591954/4 "2011-08-08T19:42:20Z")
As someone who is dating someone roughly 10 years younger than you are now, he has listened to loud heavy metal music for majority of his young teenage and adult life. At the current time of this writing, he can still hear a watch ticking from across the room. Not everyone is prone to hearing loss.
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### Author:  [@thelurkinghorror](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thelurkinghorror)
#### Post date: [August 8, 2011, 8:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ipods-ear-buds-and-hearing-loss/591954/5 "2011-08-08T20:22:53Z")
Earbuds do very little to block out sound. So when people listen to music when say, traffic is nearby, they turn up the earbuds to a higher volume. Circumaural, supraural, and in-ear headphones block out more sound, so the risk of damage is lesser because the volume tends to be lower.
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### Author:  [@Spoons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoons)
#### Post date: [August 8, 2011, 8:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ipods-ear-buds-and-hearing-loss/591954/6 "2011-08-08T20:28:54Z")
We did have an “[Ask the Audiologist](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=433367)” thread a few years ago, and it may answer your question (or at least provide some more information) about aging, ear buds, and hearing loss.
From the above-linked thread, post 33, on aging and hearing loss:
> [@](#):
>
> Anyway, just as most people begin to need glasses (for reading, at least) as they get older, so do people start to lose the high frequencies of their hearing due to age. The range of human hearing extends to 20,000 Hz at the top end, however, it is the high frequencies that we lose first as we age. The condition of losing high frequencies to age, in case you wanted to know … is called presbycusis (prez-bi-CUE-sis).
Also from the above-linked thread, post 17, on earbuds. Note that the OP was discussing young people and IPods, but it would seem that the principles outlined would be true for any age:
> [@](#):
>
> I should state first that I’ve seen people of all ages. Hearing loss isn’t limited to senior citizens. But I have noticed that I see young people more frequently than I used to…
>
> The reason for the increase in such a hearing loss is simple: young people today listen to music that is too loud through technology that can deliver decibel levels of the sort that would mandate hearing protection in industrial or work situations. An IPod,as I understand it, can deliver sound levels of over 100 dB. For comparison’s sake, a jackhammer subjects its operator to about 100 dB. But the jackhammer operator must wear ear protection, under most OSHA rules. Our kids don’t, and they listen to that level on their IPods! And they do so through earbuds that pretty much shoot sound straight at their eardrums…
Edited by me, as indicated, for the sake of brevity. Anyway, OP, you may want to look more fully at that thread.
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### Author:  [@cochrane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cochrane)
#### Post date: [August 8, 2011, 9:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ipods-ear-buds-and-hearing-loss/591954/7 "2011-08-08T21:58:12Z")
On my iPhone, I can set a volume limit so that it won’t exceed a certain level, even with the volume control turned all the way up to maximum. That way, you can protect your hearing from being damaged while using the earbuds.
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### Author:  [@dracoi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dracoi)
#### Post date: [August 8, 2011, 10:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ipods-ear-buds-and-hearing-loss/591954/8 "2011-08-08T22:06:25Z")
In line with what **thelurkinghorror** said: noise-cancelling or ambient noise reducing headphones can be a good idea for protecting hearing when there’s lots of background noise. Many people turn up the volume on their music until they can hear it over the background - by reducing background noise, you can play the music at a lower level.
Regarding the OP’s question about quality of music: the head phones and file type/sampling rate are going to be more important to quality than the device playing the music. The iPod/iPhone do have adjustable equalizers that may enhance sound quality, but I think that’s a pretty common feature on most digital players.
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### Author:  [@Jaledin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jaledin)
#### Post date: [August 8, 2011, 11:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ipods-ear-buds-and-hearing-loss/591954/9 "2011-08-08T23:19:56Z")
> [@thelurkinghorror](#):
>
> Earbuds do very little to block out sound. So when people listen to music when say, traffic is nearby, they turn up the earbuds to a higher volume. Circumaural, supraural, and in-ear headphones block out more sound, so the risk of damage is lesser because the volume tends to be lower.
QFT. I’m 35 and I have some hearing loss, probably due to using headphones (not earbuds) for many hours a day in my current “job” as a musician. The only in-ear phones I’ve liked have been ones like those made by Shur(e? can never remember if it has an ‘e’ on the end) which impede sound waves as well as reproducing sound.
I walk a lot every day, and invariably use earplugs, as well as over-the-ear phones to study music or just rock out. I don’t even really specialize in heavy rock – mostly low-key jazz music – but I believe that continued exposure is the culprit. Even just an acoustic piano is pretty effing loud if you hear the reverberations inches from your ear for hours and hours every day.
Oh, and back to the other prong of the OP – yes. Mp3s suck ass, the quality is shit, the audio engineers, mixers, and mastering engineers are mostly shit, or driven by shit decisions, and no body gives a shit about the sound. It doesn’t matter what shitty little ear-rapers you jack off into, when most of the decisions have been decided. Not about mp3 format, just that production design is fucked.
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### Author:  [@Jaledin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jaledin)
#### Post date: [August 8, 2011, 11:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ipods-ear-buds-and-hearing-loss/591954/10 "2011-08-08T23:32:10Z")
And, yes, compression, I’m talking at you! Also the commercial medium that demands “more volume, less dynamics.” And, above, by “earplugs,” I meant those little foam ones you get at a hardware store by the gross – I go through them a bunch.