Quiet is the new loud: 85dB noise limit legislation proposed
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- My Bloody Valentine »
Now hear this... legislation is set to turn down the maximum volume of MP3 players.
This legislation won't come into affect until the spring but BBC1's Politics Show has heard that EU regulators in Brussels are set to introduce new maximum default volumes on MP3 players. This news follows evidence that prolonged listening to personal music players at high volumes is causing irreversible hearing loss, especially among younger people. This because currently MP3 players can be cranked to the equivalent of 'a jet taking off' and they'd like to turn them to, we'd guess, something more like the noise of a hoover sucking up marbles.
Stephen Russell of the European consumer lobby, ANEC, told the Politics Show:
"There are up to ten million Europeans, mainly young people, who are at risk of losing their hearing permanently in the next five years due to their personal listening habits. The units on the market at the moment, some of them are capable of generating a volume of beyond one hundred and fifteen decibels; now if we compare that with health and safety legislation, workers are not allowed to be exposed to that levels of volume for more than thirty seconds."
Dr Robin Yeoh, a consultant at the Portland Hospital in London, told the programme:
"The experts and professionals in these field are seeing a change in demographics, we're seeing much less people working in heavy industry, they're much younger and the suspicion is that a lot of them have been exposed to recreational noise, whether it's clubbing, discos, but certainly personal music players play quite a big part in this … Once you damage the nerves of your inner ear that's permanent, there's no medication, no surgery, no therapies that's going to reverse it."
Basically, EU experts want the default maximum setting to be 85 decibels. My Bloody Valentine fans would be able to crank things to 100 decibels if they tinker with their player and override the setting. Somewhat scarily, some MP3 players examined in testing facilities have been found to reach 120 decibels, which is the equivalent of a jet taking off because there is currently no mandatory safety default level. Manufacturers are 'obliged' to print information but this clearly isn't enough - I mean, who actually reads instruction manuals?
You can watch the Politics Show online via BBC iPlayer.
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My Bloody Valentine
Surely 120db via earphones would be quite uncomfortable?
I had an mp3 player with a volume limit on it before, never needed to disable it. The only time it can be a bit annoying is when listening to something that is mastered quite quiet such as Songs about Fucking.
in two minds
I listened to my cd/minidisc player louds when I was younger, played bass guitar and cello, now my ears are screwed and I'm only 20. Tinnitus every night in bed, even if I haven't been out to a club.
On one hand, I'm glad something is being done to stop young people pummelling their ears in like I did which definitely effects me now in day-to-day situations and when trying to dj. But on the other, I think it'd be better to educate rather than enforce rules.
I can understand needing to protect hearing
but 85dB is a load of tosh. If that can do serious damage to hearing then they need to put a ban on traffic.
The reason many people have ear/headphones in is to drown out such noise. Limiting to 85dB will mean that any time a car goes past, music will be drowned out.
I guess if it does happen then everyone will just end up importing non-limited ones or finding hacks to disable the limiter. I've got one of the newest ipods and they don't go loud enough as it it
I just did an interview with the RNID
which stands for the Royal National institute of the Deaf. If anyone is interested in Tinnitus and the effects of loud or prolonged music on the ears then check it out. http://www.impactnottingham.com/2009/12/don%E2%80%99t-lose-the-music/
the problem is people using shit headphones, so they turn it up shit loads to drown out background noise
i am guilty of this, the bus can be a loud and annoying as fuck drone of noise so i turn up my MP3 player. after xmas i intend on buying some good headphones so i can listen at a more sensible volume.
^^^
I have my I-pod on something like 1/4 volume, because I have decent headphones. I can get loads of bass and not have it too loud.
^^^
I have my I-pod on something like 1/4 volume, because I have decent headphones. I can get loads of bass and not have it too loud.
say again?
sorry mate, didn't hear what you said over the band.
There is no scientific study that links personal music players
to hearing loss and tinnitus - fact.
this is pretty ridiculous really
the problem is nothing to do with the players themselves and everything to do with the headphones. A high ohmage pair get nowhere near that volume.. some headphones can barely be driven at all by iPods, even in their current state. It's just the awful 2-bob Apple packaged headphones that let in loads of outside noise and are ridiculously shrill (needing high volumes to achieve any bass) that need to be looked at. If Apple started packaging their iPods with their new canalphone types then a lot of this would go out the window. THAT is what Brussels should be acting on
hum
i dislike the idea of being told what volume we can listen to. i do think people play their ipods and that at too great a volume however. though of course people will hack the firmware and that... so... in reality this is all pretty pointless. but still. hum
oh and
my hearing is kinda fucked anyway
Most, if not all, of my hearing loss is due to clubs and live music...
...playing ridiculously loud - that's a much bigger problem in my opinion - one night and that's it, Tinnitus for the rest of your life is a bit riskier than anything an mp3 player can do to your ears, even over time.
dB is a relative scale
you can count your finances in dB if you so wish... im sure some firms are going to look into any possible loopholes with this;
i think it's a good idea tho in general, smashing your ears is always going to be bad
playing on stage though... wearing a hoodie is enough to protect my ears, coz cheap ear plugs is like paying a few quid for a wank monitor engineer and there's no way im shelling out £50+ for some foam that goes into my ear
The limit's too low and you'd be stupid not to recognise that your music's far too loud
Obviously headphones are a major problem, but surely you've got to cut down other sources too? I'm not sure how accurate this is but it suggests that it's only permissable to allow yourself 15 minutes at a "loud rock concert" (and I'm assuming that's not MBV loudness) per day, which is 4 times as loud as the EU's proposed limit.
http://www.gcaudio.com/resources/howtos/loudness.html
To be honest I know very little about how loud my headphones go. It'd be annoying to have a limit imposed as some bands actually need to be played almost uncomfortably loudly, for me. You'd be stupid to not realise that having ringing in your ears after listening to an album means that you should listen to something quiet or nothing at all for a while.
I've done a few tests over the last 24 hours
Using a decibel meter app for my phone, which I calibrated with a "Proper" meter here at work. Putting my headphones right up to the mic I got readings of around 92db with a peak of 96db whilst playing about 10 loud songs.
On the way home last night I checked the noise levels on the Met line train. For full scientific disclosure this was on the outside section and ran for about 10 minutes, It was about 4:15 PM. Average noise levels whilst the train was moving were 88-98 db depending on track condition and number of people talking (At one point a group of school kids got on the train and the sound levels never went below 95db)Several peaks were of up to 103db (mainly people coughing me included). When the train was in a station it obviously went quieter but only down to 84db but if the train was idling (users of the met line will probably know what engine noise i mean) this was at 95db and add in the beeping for doors closing it would go up to 98db.
I tried again this morning on the central line but this time in a tunneled section and only for 5 minutes. Results were similar but on average about 2 db higher although peaks stayed the same.
So headphones should be quieter than life? MAybe they're not the problem.
I dont see the argument for this legislation...
At least with smoking they had the passive smoking argument. If I am listening to my walkman loud, fully aware of the damage I am doing, who else do I hurt?
A society that does not allow it's citizens to take responsiblity for their own safety is setting a dangerous precedent. I take a calculated risk every time I cross the road, the same as the risk I take listening to Merzbow on my walkman. IT IS ABOUT MY FREEDOM TO CHOOSE THE RISKS I TAKE
cool site
thanks for the info. I will often look through it.
www.ghdle.com
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www.mbtsforsale.com
thanks it
I like it.
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