Are headphones safe?
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Our office is open plan and noisy. The developers find themselves listening to headphones a lot of the day. I'm concerned about the long-term damage to hearing that could be caused. I'm thinking of either upgrading to some better noise cancelling headphones, or just live with the noise and limit my listening to a certain amount of time a day. Does anyone have any knowledge on this sort of thing? From my little knowledge the damage is a combination of the sound level and the time. If really good headphones were purchased that allowed the music to be listened at low volumne would this take the risk away? (In the medium/long term I think the office layout is to be changed).
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Our office is open plan and noisy. The developers find themselves listening to headphones a lot of the day. I'm concerned about the long-term damage to hearing that could be caused. I'm thinking of either upgrading to some better noise cancelling headphones, or just live with the noise and limit my listening to a certain amount of time a day. Does anyone have any knowledge on this sort of thing? From my little knowledge the damage is a combination of the sound level and the time. If really good headphones were purchased that allowed the music to be listened at low volumne would this take the risk away? (In the medium/long term I think the office layout is to be changed).
As long as your volume in the headphones is not excessive, there is no problem. Investing in a decent pair of noise cancelling ones should mean you don't have to turn the volume up as loud.
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Our office is open plan and noisy. The developers find themselves listening to headphones a lot of the day. I'm concerned about the long-term damage to hearing that could be caused. I'm thinking of either upgrading to some better noise cancelling headphones, or just live with the noise and limit my listening to a certain amount of time a day. Does anyone have any knowledge on this sort of thing? From my little knowledge the damage is a combination of the sound level and the time. If really good headphones were purchased that allowed the music to be listened at low volumne would this take the risk away? (In the medium/long term I think the office layout is to be changed).
Low levels are ok. The problem with headphone is that they tempt you to listen louder, especially if you try to drown out surrounding noise. So yes, upgrade your headphones, but keep control of the volume. I find that even at soft levels, without covering surrounding noise it gives me something to focus on. Ignoring speech is much harder than other noise, though, especially if you hear just one side of the conversation. BTW. I learnt from a respectable source that if you had to much exposure the night before (loud concert), the best thing is to 1. take an aspirin and 2. listen to music at soft levels. The latter is apparently better than complete silence.
FILETIME to time_t
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Low levels are ok. The problem with headphone is that they tempt you to listen louder, especially if you try to drown out surrounding noise. So yes, upgrade your headphones, but keep control of the volume. I find that even at soft levels, without covering surrounding noise it gives me something to focus on. Ignoring speech is much harder than other noise, though, especially if you hear just one side of the conversation. BTW. I learnt from a respectable source that if you had to much exposure the night before (loud concert), the best thing is to 1. take an aspirin and 2. listen to music at soft levels. The latter is apparently better than complete silence.
FILETIME to time_t
| FoldWithUs! | sighist | WhoIncludes - Analyzing C++ include file hierarchyThat's the problem with having rubbish earphones at the moment: you start at a low level but the volume creeps up as the people get noisier.
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Our office is open plan and noisy. The developers find themselves listening to headphones a lot of the day. I'm concerned about the long-term damage to hearing that could be caused. I'm thinking of either upgrading to some better noise cancelling headphones, or just live with the noise and limit my listening to a certain amount of time a day. Does anyone have any knowledge on this sort of thing? From my little knowledge the damage is a combination of the sound level and the time. If really good headphones were purchased that allowed the music to be listened at low volumne would this take the risk away? (In the medium/long term I think the office layout is to be changed).
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Our office is open plan and noisy. The developers find themselves listening to headphones a lot of the day. I'm concerned about the long-term damage to hearing that could be caused. I'm thinking of either upgrading to some better noise cancelling headphones, or just live with the noise and limit my listening to a certain amount of time a day. Does anyone have any knowledge on this sort of thing? From my little knowledge the damage is a combination of the sound level and the time. If really good headphones were purchased that allowed the music to be listened at low volumne would this take the risk away? (In the medium/long term I think the office layout is to be changed).
Pardon? (I know, I just find it hard to resist a feed-line.)
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Our office is open plan and noisy. The developers find themselves listening to headphones a lot of the day. I'm concerned about the long-term damage to hearing that could be caused. I'm thinking of either upgrading to some better noise cancelling headphones, or just live with the noise and limit my listening to a certain amount of time a day. Does anyone have any knowledge on this sort of thing? From my little knowledge the damage is a combination of the sound level and the time. If really good headphones were purchased that allowed the music to be listened at low volumne would this take the risk away? (In the medium/long term I think the office layout is to be changed).
I do own some ear muffs for DIY. Maybe I should try those. The problem with these is I find the muffled sound odd. I don't actually want to listen to music; it's just far less distracting. I also forget to mention that it's not an agile setup where people are talking about things you might actually be interested in. Some nice pink fluffy ear muffs might get the message across, but might get me taken away by men in white coats ;)
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Our office is open plan and noisy. The developers find themselves listening to headphones a lot of the day. I'm concerned about the long-term damage to hearing that could be caused. I'm thinking of either upgrading to some better noise cancelling headphones, or just live with the noise and limit my listening to a certain amount of time a day. Does anyone have any knowledge on this sort of thing? From my little knowledge the damage is a combination of the sound level and the time. If really good headphones were purchased that allowed the music to be listened at low volumne would this take the risk away? (In the medium/long term I think the office layout is to be changed).
You need to be alert of the phone when ringing or else it will not be safe for you not to answer when your boss call you and you don't answer coz you are putting you headphones.
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Our office is open plan and noisy. The developers find themselves listening to headphones a lot of the day. I'm concerned about the long-term damage to hearing that could be caused. I'm thinking of either upgrading to some better noise cancelling headphones, or just live with the noise and limit my listening to a certain amount of time a day. Does anyone have any knowledge on this sort of thing? From my little knowledge the damage is a combination of the sound level and the time. If really good headphones were purchased that allowed the music to be listened at low volumne would this take the risk away? (In the medium/long term I think the office layout is to be changed).
Head phones at a very low level. I still hear everything, but I can tune it out.
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Our office is open plan and noisy. The developers find themselves listening to headphones a lot of the day. I'm concerned about the long-term damage to hearing that could be caused. I'm thinking of either upgrading to some better noise cancelling headphones, or just live with the noise and limit my listening to a certain amount of time a day. Does anyone have any knowledge on this sort of thing? From my little knowledge the damage is a combination of the sound level and the time. If really good headphones were purchased that allowed the music to be listened at low volumne would this take the risk away? (In the medium/long term I think the office layout is to be changed).
JamesA_Dev wrote:
Does anyone have any knowledge on this sort of thing?
I'm thinking that if you have headphones on, you should make sure you are not flying a helicopter, and that a man named Blofeld is not below you in a wheelchair operating a remote control.
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Our office is open plan and noisy. The developers find themselves listening to headphones a lot of the day. I'm concerned about the long-term damage to hearing that could be caused. I'm thinking of either upgrading to some better noise cancelling headphones, or just live with the noise and limit my listening to a certain amount of time a day. Does anyone have any knowledge on this sort of thing? From my little knowledge the damage is a combination of the sound level and the time. If really good headphones were purchased that allowed the music to be listened at low volumne would this take the risk away? (In the medium/long term I think the office layout is to be changed).
A helmet is safer. :)
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You need to be alert of the phone when ringing or else it will not be safe for you not to answer when your boss call you and you don't answer coz you are putting you headphones.
If you've decent phone software, you can get an alert to flash on your screen when a call is coming. We haven't got this though...
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Our office is open plan and noisy. The developers find themselves listening to headphones a lot of the day. I'm concerned about the long-term damage to hearing that could be caused. I'm thinking of either upgrading to some better noise cancelling headphones, or just live with the noise and limit my listening to a certain amount of time a day. Does anyone have any knowledge on this sort of thing? From my little knowledge the damage is a combination of the sound level and the time. If really good headphones were purchased that allowed the music to be listened at low volumne would this take the risk away? (In the medium/long term I think the office layout is to be changed).
I thought I'd mention that in the end I went for Sennheiser HD 202 at £26.48 These isolate quite well allowing lower volume listening. Not a scientific measure, but 20% Master Volume as opposed to about 50%. As well as being more comfortable than in-ear phones, it's a lot easier for people to notice that you're wearing them. So you can make a slight improvement without spending a lot.