What About Using Earbuds on a Flight to Play Movies?

[three4rd]

Hi,

I will be on a long (14 hour) international flight and typically when I am on long-haul trips I pass the time by watching and listening to movies. All my prior experiences with this are pre-T. days.

Now that I have T., is it still ok to use the buds? Otherwise it's gonna be a long boring trip since I cannot read while flying - aggravates my motion sickness sensitivities.

Another thing I do is, while recording my solo guitar albums over the years, I typically spend great deals of time using a pair of good quality studio-monitor headphones (the kind that have the soft padding that completely covers the ears) to monitor mixes and EQ, etc. Is this still ok?

I had asked my audiologist and he said it shouldn't be a problem. I've done much research into this and find that there are mixed opinions. Obviously, the volume should be kept considerably lower than I probably used in the past and the amount of time should be greatly reduced. Music - playing, recording, etc., is what I do. To suddenly take much of that away would be a sore trial indeed.

Any suggestions (short of giving up recording and monitoring my music - which simply is not going to happen) much appreciated.

Thanks,
Keith

 

[Alue]

I wouldn't recommend it. Flights are noisy as it is, so you would have to turn the volume up to louder than you normally would just to be able to hear the ear buds.

You could put earbuds in and earmuffs over it canceling out some of the outside sound so you don't have to turn it up so loud.

 

[Adin]

Maybe you should consider getting a good pair of noise cancelling headhphones? In that case you won't have to worry about turning up the volume to drown out outside noise on the airplane. They are not cheap, but after trying on a pair of my friends qc35 wireless i couldn't believe my ears. I'm concidering getting a pair myself. You can buy an airplane addapter cheap at any general tech store, and i would really watch out for those airplane stock headphones. I haven't flown since my onset of T. But i remember the volume buttons attached to the headphone jack being very missleading and the last thing you want is accidentally turning up the volume to max, perhaps resulting in further damage.

I wouldn't worry too much though. Just avoid obvious risks and it should be no problem

 

[Ed209]

I'd recommend using noise cancelling headphones or good passive over ear headphones. I used some passive ones (sennheiser hd280), and had no issues at all. I used them on two 12 hour flights. The only problem I had was equalising the pressure in my ear on the descent, and that was because I had congested Eustachian tubes.

Bose quiet comfort 25's are probably the best you'll get. When I used mine I only watched TV shows, I didn't listen to any music. I had it set at half a bar in volume, the absolute lowest it could go and had no problems hearing it at all. I think it's extremely hard to do a long haul flight without some kind of entertainment (especially in economy it's like torture), whether that be reading or watching TV.

The amount of noise at my eardrum was minimal; I'd say noticeably less than when I took the headphones off and compared to the background drone. I took a lot a breaks and tried to sleep in between (I can never sleep on a plane).

It's up to you though, we can only give our experiences and opinions.

 

[Ed209]

I'd personally stay away from earbuds. If you do decide to use something make sure they are over ear headphones.