Poll: Noise-Cancelling Headphones — Do They Pose a Risk for Tinnitus?

[JurgenG]

I've recently read about a potential danger for tinnitus sufferers concerning these types of headphones.

I only used them on flights, and also had a small spike afterwards, not sure if it's related though..

That's why I am making a poll to see if this is a real danger.

 

[JurgenG]

I don't play any music on them. Just cancelling noise, used them for 3 hours.

 

[Foncky]

I think it's very personal. I know some people with T and H who use them everyday without any issue, while some others will get a (temporary) spike after just one use.

 

[JurgenG]

Can people who vote "not sure" explain a bit more? Thanks!

 

[Samir]

I don't really know, so I voted "not sure". Who does? I really wanted to vote "not using them but want to vote". Because I never have. It's a bit silly voting option, don't you think?

I have also read that they can be a bad idea. Although I read that here on the forum as a comment from one of the members, not in a scientific journal.

It may be worth mentioning that there was some mention of a Bose noise canceling "hearphones" in the New Yorker article, where the author (David Owen) discussed many things hearing related, including tinnitus.

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/04/03/high-tech-hope-for-the-hard-of-hearing

They didn't seem to be too concerned about it. But then again, no one raised the question of safety.

 

[racerfish]

I have to imagine it could have on some people with T. It's creating additional noise to cancel out ambient noise in the background. And in a place like an airplane where your perception of how loud something is distorted by the constant hum of the engines which can be 80-85 db while mid flight, I personally would never use them. Ear plugs are dirt cheap and do the job just fine.

 

[JurgenG]

I have to imagine it could have on some people with T. It's creating additional noise to cancel out ambient noise in the background. And in a place like an airplane where your perception of how loud something is distorted by the constant hum of the engines which can be 80-85 db while mid flight, I personally would never use them. Ear plugs are dirt cheap and do the job just fine.

But in a plane?

 

[racerfish]

But in a plane?

What about a plane?

 

[JurgenG]

What about a plane?

You can't use earplugs because of the pressure changes.

 

[racerfish]

You can't use earplugs because of the pressure changes.

Yes, you can. I use foam plugs all the time and fly frequently. For people concerned about the pressure equalizing with ear plugs there are plugs designed for that as well.

 

[JurgenG]

So you don't have pressure issues than?

 

[racerfish]

B

So you don't have pressure issues than?

No, I never have when flying except a couple times when I had a cold.

 

[JurgenG]

So can anyone give me an insight how this could be harmful? The fact that it creates an opposite wave? you don't hear it so it means that it's actually working and destroying the incoming wave?

 

[lolkas]

If you know how noise CANCELLING headphones work you can easily figure out that they wiol ruin your ears if not used properly.

In nut shell: noise cancelling headphones have one or set of external microphones that "listen" everything surrounds you. Then they take an opposite pattern and shoot it over.

As far as as i understand - it all happens under "ear cap" and even you dont hear it, there still noise created.

I used them once - took off right away though. They created some wierd pressure-like feeling.

Best headphones are noise ISOLATION ones. They basically block-out noise like your earpkugs do.

ISOtunes are great example. They are also built in such manner that you will never be able to blast over 85db in these. They are NIOSH copliant and can be used in environment that requires hearing protection and if 26-27db NNR is appropriate for use - you can totally use these instead of earplugs. (I would still use classic earplugs in concerts or equally loud places though).

 

[GregCA]

As far as as i understand - it all happens under "ear cap" and even you dont hear it, there still noise created.

You seem to be confused about how this technology works. Here's a video that will show you how the sound wave that ends up hitting the ear drum contains much less energy than the original one (which was "cancelled out").

If you're still confused about it after watching it, read up about destructive interference.

 

[JurgenG]

You seem to be confused about how this technology works. Here's a video that will show you how the sound wave that ends up hitting the ear drum contains much less energy than the original one (which was "cancelled out").

If you're still confused about it after watching it, read up about destructive interference.

So how can there be a problem?

 

[lolkas]

You seem to be confused about how this technology works. Here's a video that will show you how the sound wave that ends up hitting the ear drum contains much less energy than the original one (which was "cancelled out").

If you're still confused about it after watching it, read up about destructive interference.

Thanks for this!

However, i dont understand pressure feeling this gives though. It might be just me, however noise isolating technocue is far more superior to noise cancelling and safe to user.

 

[GregCA]

So how can there be a problem?

I'm not claiming there is one.

 

[mikeinOz]

I've recently read about a potential danger for tinnitus sufferers concerning these types of headphones.

I only used them on flights, and also had a small spike afterwards, not sure if it's related though..

That's why I am making a poll to see if this is a real danger.

How long did your spike last for JurgenG ? I've had a couple of flights in the last few days using NC headphones for the first time and had a noticeable spike post flight that hasn't happened before. No pressure issues when flying, quiet plane (A380) etc...

 

[MountainCreek]

Sound waves are roughly periodic compressions of air, but there are no decompression. Decompression means pressure would be lower than pressure without sound. This does not happen. Hence there are only positive contributions to the undeformed pressure (pressure in absence of sounds). Not centered about the origin, means that noise canceling wave can not cancel out the zero point pressure level caused by the original sound wave that one wants to cancel. That is the first thing. The second thing is that sound canceling wave can not cancel out any slowly varying sound pressure. Only the rapid sound wave oscillator modes can be canceled. This leaves a slowly changing pressure wave unaffected by noise canceling wave. Those slowly changing pressure waves never appear naturally in nature. It would be like a very strange weather system with rapidly changing pressure. Or perhaps flying a fighter jet trying to escape a bomb attack by flying up and down. If I would guess, then this is my guess why people may get nausea by noise canceling headphones -- the slowly varying pressure changes in the headphones. Whether they are harmful, I wouldn't think so. But am not so sure. Still searching the answer to this question.

 

[MountainCreek]

Perhaps harmful. After having seen that people really get nausea, plus my worries about getting Menieres, I think I will stay away from noise cancelation on any flights I take.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21978648

 

[GregCA]

Perhaps harmful. After having seen that people really get nausea, plus my worries about getting Menieres, I think I will stay away from noise cancelation on any flights I take.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21978648

The article you quote doesn't support your statements.

First it's not a study with statistical significance, it's the description of ONE case.

Second, they don't find any explanation: they just offer 2 hypotheses.

Third, they state themselves that the first hypothesis is not corroborated by any study, and the second hypothesis is independent from noise-cancellation technology, since they postulate that the symptom may be because "the sealed air chamber around the ears may have deleteriously affected movement of the tympanic membranes and middle ear ossicles in response to the continuous noise", which would happen if you were wearing other types of sealed headphones (like those you suggest using in a previous post), or just ear plugs.

 

[MountainCreek]

The article you quote doesn't support your statements.

First it's not a study with statistical significance, it's the description of ONE case.

Second, they don't find any explanation: they just offer 2 hypotheses.

Third, they state themselves that the first hypothesis is not corroborated by any study, and the second hypothesis is independent from noise-cancellation technology, since they postulate that the symptom may be because "the sealed air chamber around the ears may have deleteriously affected movement of the tympanic membranes and middle ear ossicles in response to the continuous noise", which would happen if you were wearing other types of sealed headphones (like those you suggest using in a previous post), or just ear plugs.

Thanks a lot for the information. Yet I get the impression when searching the web that mostly women get nausea by noise cancelation. Hard to know how to judge that information on the web. Combining that with ONE research article based on ONE case, plus my own reasoning on how pressure can only add and never be subtracted (no negative pressure is ever induced by noise canceling wave, only positive pressure, leading to net positive rather constant pressure), makes me wondering. Just wondering. It might be good, it might be bad. I just don't know.

 

[GregCA]

plus my own reasoning on how pressure can only add and never be subtracted (no negative pressure is ever induced by noise canceling wave, only positive pressure, leading to net positive rather constant pressure)

Unfortunately your reasoning is flawed (I mean no offense by calling it out). Negative pressure through phase opposition can absolutely be applied to a sound wave. Think about your ear drum: it can move towards the inner direction and the outer direction. If a sound wave comes in wanting to push it it in, you can counteract it by adding a wave that would want to push the ear drum in the opposite direction, such that the ear drum doesn't move at all.

Now you're probably thinking "but there's no way we're going to put a speaker in the middle ear to push the ear drum out" - but you have to trust me that you don't have to put the speaker in that location to create the same effect. You can do it with a speaker on the outside (notice how a speaker can also move both in and out so it can "suck the air out" when needed?)

I'm simplifying it a bit, but the physics of wave propagation absolutely allows you to cancel out sound waves. Noise cancelling isn't a scam that doesn't follow the principles of wave propagation in physics and that somehow no scientist has ever questioned. It fits well within the laws of physics.

 

[MountainCreek]

Unfortunately your reasoning is flawed (I mean no offense by calling it out). Negative pressure through phase opposition can absolutely be applied to a sound wave. Think about your ear drum: it can move towards the inner direction and the outer direction. If a sound wave comes in wanting to push it it in, you can counteract it by adding a wave that would want to push the ear drum in the opposite direction, such that the ear drum doesn't move at all.

Now you're probably thinking "but there's no way we're going to put a speaker in the middle ear to push the ear drum out" - but you have to trust me that you don't have to put the speaker in that location to create the same effect. You can do it with a speaker on the outside (notice how a speaker can also move both in and out so it can "suck the air out" when needed?)

I'm simplifying it a bit, but the physics of wave propagation absolutely allows you to cancel out sound waves. Noise cancelling isn't a scam that doesn't follow the principles of wave propagation in physics and that somehow no scientist has ever questioned. It fits well within the laws of physics.

Right. Some negative pressure can of course be created as you say (a vacuum cleaner might be an example). Noise canceling headphones do not produce any overall pressure changes, but I tend to believe that ordinary sound waves can consist of both a rapidly oscillatory wave as well as a slowly varying change of pressure. A microphone probes the rapid oscillator modes, but not the overall pressure changes. So overall pressure changes are not being balanced out by just having a sound canceling oscillating wave. To cancel also the overall pressure change (a pressure change that is so slowly varying that no microphone in the world would ever pick it up in terms of a sound wave) we need to also install a barometer which measures the static pressure in the head phones, and then compensate for the pressure change as well.

But if my theory is wrong, and if this is not the explanation why people get nausea by the noise canceling effect, then what could be the explanation then?

 

[GregCA]

But if my theory is wrong, and if this is not the explanation why people get nausea by the noise canceling effect, then what could be the explanation then?

I don't have the answer to that. I don't even know of any study that reports that a statistically significant amount of people report nausea when using NC headphones (pubmed's search with "noise cancelling nausea" keywords reports 0 publications).

 

[MountainCreek]

Sarah Stackpole, a New York ear, nose and throat doctor, speculates that the sound waves that cancel each other out may still transmit enough very low frequency vibrations to stimulate the balance receptors that are connected to the hearing hair cells in the inner ear. These vibrations are akin to those caused by blast explosions or barotrauma in scuba diving, but much less forceful, she says. The disequilibrium that some people may feel from this is made worse because the vibrations falsely signal that the head is moving, but the eyes report that the head is stationary. Those mixed signals make the headphone wearer feel dizzy. [http://gizmodo.com/355678/noise-canceling-headphones-might-make-you-motion-sick]

 

[Jack Hunter]

@JurgenG what did you read that sparked your poll? What brand were your headphones?

I picked up constant and sudden Tinnitus about a week ago after prolonged, but not loud, use of noise cancelling headphones. I'm noticing that many on this forum describe using Bose before suffering, even though there are plenty of firms making NC headphones.

 

[JurgenG]

@JurgenG what did you read that sparked your poll? What brand were your headphones?

I picked up constant and sudden Tinnitus about a week ago after prolonged, but not loud, use of noise cancelling headphones. I'm noticing that many on this forum describe using Bose before suffering, even though there are plenty of firms making NC headphones.

Been a while so I don't know anymore, guess I was googling about them. I used to have frequent spikes and google everything. (Possibly not the best thing.)
The brand of my headphones were Philips btw, but I think it's the same for each type.

 

[sirhand]

I voted not sure because I'm new to this whole thing. I've been using noise canceling headphones since the onset of my T and I haven't had any issues. They help me listen quieter while still being able to drown out distracting noise. I could have avoided damaging my ears in the first place if I had bought noise cancelling headphones earlier.

The slight noise of the noise canceling does give me headphone fatigue pretty fast though. I only leave them on for short periods less than an hour.