Oh, I see.
Yes it’s understandable to not want to feel one is exposing too much.
It does feel a bit odd to talk about "hearing health" issues on an audiophile board. Some people could possibly be d*cks and try to put a negative spin on that.
But these issues ARE a concern for people, and one would think especially audiophiles, and since the issues naturally crop up now and again, I think it’s helpful to share what information we can.
In my case, if there is a silver lining to having had Tinnitus since the late 80’s, it’s that it got me protecting my ears early, and hence my audiogram is actually very good and hearing tone tests are excellent for my age - it’s more like the hearing of someone 12 years younger (I’m 54).
My audiologist was going through very minute adjustments of the white noise for my treatment, through the earbuds. When he’d adjust I’d tell him "you just slightly increased the sound around 4K."
He expressed amazement as he said he was adjusting by 1 or 2 dB increments, and no one had ever remarked on hearing the difference.
Fortunately I have good hearing and I do this for my living. I'm increasing various parts of the frequency range in a wide variety of sounds, by 1 to 3 dB all the time.
Now, I just want my hearing to get LESS sensitive :)
But as for hearing loss, as people have said, a large proportion of audiophiles are over 50 and definitely would have lost high frequency hearing, especially if you are more towards 60 and beyond. (My wife is 55 and did not live a life exposed to tons of loud sound, yet her hearing caps off somewhere around 10Kz or below). So many audiophiles can only brag so far about their hearing. But given much of what our brain cares about is actually below the frequency of age-related hearing loss, we can all still enjoy music and evaluate most aspects of high end gear.
Yes it’s understandable to not want to feel one is exposing too much.
It does feel a bit odd to talk about "hearing health" issues on an audiophile board. Some people could possibly be d*cks and try to put a negative spin on that.
But these issues ARE a concern for people, and one would think especially audiophiles, and since the issues naturally crop up now and again, I think it’s helpful to share what information we can.
In my case, if there is a silver lining to having had Tinnitus since the late 80’s, it’s that it got me protecting my ears early, and hence my audiogram is actually very good and hearing tone tests are excellent for my age - it’s more like the hearing of someone 12 years younger (I’m 54).
My audiologist was going through very minute adjustments of the white noise for my treatment, through the earbuds. When he’d adjust I’d tell him "you just slightly increased the sound around 4K."
He expressed amazement as he said he was adjusting by 1 or 2 dB increments, and no one had ever remarked on hearing the difference.
Fortunately I have good hearing and I do this for my living. I'm increasing various parts of the frequency range in a wide variety of sounds, by 1 to 3 dB all the time.
Now, I just want my hearing to get LESS sensitive :)
But as for hearing loss, as people have said, a large proportion of audiophiles are over 50 and definitely would have lost high frequency hearing, especially if you are more towards 60 and beyond. (My wife is 55 and did not live a life exposed to tons of loud sound, yet her hearing caps off somewhere around 10Kz or below). So many audiophiles can only brag so far about their hearing. But given much of what our brain cares about is actually below the frequency of age-related hearing loss, we can all still enjoy music and evaluate most aspects of high end gear.