What's the Real Difference Between Using Headphones and a Telephone?

[Mister Muso]

Headphones at low-moderate volume make my ears "fatigued" after just 10-20 minutes now so I try to avoid them. I don't know if it would or would not affect my tinnitus and hyperacusis if I ignored those feelings of discomfort, but I have no wish to find out.

I get the same from playing the upright piano after 10-20 minutes at low volume with double-protection (plus and cans), which is my biggest loss in my present condition. My eardrums start to flutter and feel full, and my T can be spiked for a day or two afterwards.

Note my T & H were caused by acoustic trauma, so this may not be the same if your symptoms had different causes.

 

[Mister Muso]

There are good reasons to be concerned about headphone use because they can certainly make it easy to overdose on noise, but if you use them in a way that exposes you to the same sound levels you'd get from a speaker system, then there's no magic mechanism by which headphones become more damaging.

My ears can also become fatigued from listening to music through speakers, but it seems to take longer than it does with headphones for me. Again I can think of no convincing science to back this up - you just have to trust your gut and do what seems best for you in these matters.

 

[linearb]

My ears can also become fatigued from listening to music through speakers, but it seems to take longer than it does with headphones for me. Again I can think of no convincing science to back this up - you just have to trust your gut and do what seems best for you in these matters.

There's a lot of good reasons headphones could be more fatiguing -- with close backed headphones, the sound can't escape, so lower subjective volumes expose you to more noise.

This is why I am always careful to say, "a soundwave at the eardrum of a given dB is the same, regardless of source". But, playing 75db music through speakers will result in much less noise in your ear than 75db coming out of a closed-back speaker. Additionally, I've found that cheap sound sources across the board tend to be more fatiguing -- I think it's because there are uneven patches in the spectrum, so parts of your hearing get more taxed than others. This may be more obvious with headphones, since you're listening more directly to the music.

I know that for the year or two following onset I couldn't tolerate headphones at all -- whereas yesterday I spent 7 hours on planes, wearing silicone earplugs, but wearing NC headphones over them for music / video games -- so that's 7 hours of headphone use in a day, no problems noted. I know I couldn't have done that in 2014, so I take that as a sign of improvement. (Air travel is one of the only times I use headphones for more than 1-2 hrs in a day, and I suspect that wearing silicone plugs between the headphone speaker and my eardrum is helpful).

 

[Mister Muso]

There's a lot of good reasons headphones could be more fatiguing -- with close backed headphones, the sound can't escape, so lower subjective volumes expose you to more noise.

You may be onto something there. I've just thought of another difference between speakers and headphones, which seems obvious when I mention it: when you listen to speakers, your ears are not constantly in the same position in relation to the sound source, as you move around and the sound waves enter your ears at different angles, compared with headphones where its constantly in the same position at the same angle. Hence less chance of fatigue with speakers - but of course if the volume becomes too high then they could easily do the same damage. Again I'm not proposing this as a scientific theory, but when you just mentioned about open-backed headphones possibly being safer, that idea popped into my mind.

 

[Mitch]

When on my computer I use big studio monitor headphones (Beyerdynamic DT770's) at a very low volume, and I've been doing so for years. They do not make my tinnitus any worse and do not fatigue my ears. They are also great for listening to neuromodulation sounds like ACRN and mynoise.net. I think there is nothing wrong with using over-ear headphones as long as you keep the volume low. Edit: of course this is just my experience, others may not agree.

 

[John Mahan]

Headphones at low-moderate volume make my ears "fatigued" after just 10-20 minutes now so I try to avoid them. I don't know if it would or would not affect my tinnitus and hyperacusis if I ignored those feelings of discomfort, but I have no wish to find out.

I get the same from playing the upright piano after 10-20 minutes at low volume with double-protection (plus and cans), which is my biggest loss in my present condition. My eardrums start to flutter and feel full, and my T can be spiked for a day or two afterwards.

Note my T & H were caused by acoustic trauma, so this may not be the same if your symptoms had different causes.

I think you proved the case that heaphones are no different than other sound sources. You get the same fatigue playing the piano even with all your protection. Really goes to show how varied hearing loss and tinnitus are.

But all said, it really does come down to what you believe. Some believe in ghosts and sleep with a light on as well and others prefer complete darkness and really struggle sleeping with any light.

One must really go with their instinct on things in particular to lower anxiety levels which are known to spike T likely more than other factor other than sleep patterns.

I get no fatigue listening to headphones...very good ones...open back...at low listening levels. My ears don't tolerate loud sound well.

 

[John Mahan]

There's a lot of good reasons headphones could be more fatiguing -- with close backed headphones, the sound can't escape, so lower subjective volumes expose you to more noise.

This is why I am always careful to say, "a soundwave at the eardrum of a given dB is the same, regardless of source". But, playing 75db music through speakers will result in much less noise in your ear than 75db coming out of a closed-back speaker. Additionally, I've found that cheap sound sources across the board tend to be more fatiguing -- I think it's because there are uneven patches in the spectrum, so parts of your hearing get more taxed than others. This may be more obvious with headphones, since you're listening more directly to the music.

I know that for the year or two following onset I couldn't tolerate headphones at all -- whereas yesterday I spent 7 hours on planes, wearing silicone earplugs, but wearing NC headphones over them for music / video games -- so that's 7 hours of headphone use in a day, no problems noted. I know I couldn't have done that in 2014, so I take that as a sign of improvement. (Air travel is one of the only times I use headphones for more than 1-2 hrs in a day, and I suspect that wearing silicone plugs between the headphone speaker and my eardrum is helpful).

Seems incongruous to say that a soundwave at the eardrum at a given dB is the same regardless of source which I agree with then go on to say headphones are more fatiguing if the sound stage can't escape with closed backed...latter I question.

Would love to see the data on that. I will believe it when I see it.

Ten's of thousands of people listen to music daily in professional mixing rooms throughout the world with studio level closed back headphones where it is critical to isolate music from ambient sound to not bias their craft. That is the instrument of choice for creating recorded music we all enjoy.

I have never seen a study that supports these individuals suffer with more ear fatigue compared to those that use open back headphones, open back headphones not practical in a sound studio.

That said, I wear open back headphones exclusively. I like the natural sound signature of open back headphones with all their leakage.

 

[linearb]

Seems incongruous to say that a soundwave at the eardrum at a given dB is the same regardless of source which I agree with then go on to say headphones are more fatiguing if the sound stage can't escape with closed backed...latter I question.

Just basing it on personal experience; in terms of occlusion, earbuds are obviously the worst, and I find they tend to tire my ears out the fastest. That could certainly also relate to the more limited sonic profile that you get from even expensive earbuds just because of the speaker size.

It's certainly the case that the same noise will be more or less damaging based on the environment, though -- consider a speaker stack at an outdoor concert, vs the same speaker stack inside a small basement venue. I don't see any reason that the same basic principle doesn't inherently apply to closed-backed headphones, because their construction is specifically to be noise-isolating and that cuts in both directions. (Padding is of course used to mitigate this and improve audio quality, but I doubt if it's 100%.

I have never seen a study that supports these individuals suffer with more ear fatigue compared to those that use open back headphones, open back headphones not practical in a sound studio.

Nor have I, but I've seen plenty of things to the effect that people who work in studios have higher rates of hearing loss and tinnitus, and have read a bunch of sad anecdotal stories about it being a career ender for various high-profile people.

I use my Sony x1000m3's more than anything else because most of my use cases involve being on conference calls without driving my wife insane. I use them for music sometimes; they're okay f0r that but inferior to the MDR-v6s in a normal sonic environment, and inferior to my grado SR80s in my generally needle-drop-quiet office.

I think we have a lot more to learn about hearing loss than we actually know from the data, in terms of mechanisms, risk factors, etc -- so I don't take an absence of data as data of absence of facts, as it were. They are just yet to be quantified.

 

[John Mahan]

It's certainly the case that the same noise will be more or less damaging based on the environment, though -- consider a speaker stack at an outdoor concert, vs the same speaker stack inside a small basement venue. I don't see any reason that the same basic principle doesn't inherently apply to closed-backed headphones, because their construction is specifically to be noise-isolating and that cuts in both directions. (Padding is of course used to mitigate this and improve audio quality, but I doubt if it's 100%.

Sorry but we disagree there...based upon schooling.
Can't make that analogy because 'sound volume' aka dB is related to chamber size relative to sound energy.
That is why weak speakers sound better in a smaller room. In a concert hall 50 watts per channel with efficient speakers will be barely audible compared to the same system in your livingroom.

Comparing oversized speakers to speakers sized appropriately relative to volume aka closed headphones is a false equivalence. Speaker drivers in closed versus open headphones are pretty close for most top manufacturers. This is for the simple reason that chamber size matters more than open versus closed format. In fact if you hang out on audiophile forums, many music geeks mod their headphones to change the frequency response. This can include blocking off open headphones or opening up closed headphones. Same drivers.