Thinking of upgrading my speakers

Ok I can't remember where I saw it... so I was probably wrong about it being 135dB
But Ztevie says listening to an Mp3 player at 60% volume can damage your hearing, so surely my speakers in my car would. How many dB do you think my speakers will go at maximum including the bass? And if I put the bass on the max and put it at volume 8 out of 30 do you think that'd cause damage?
 
Ok I can't remember where I saw it... so I was probably wrong about it being 135dB
But Ztevie says listening to an Mp3 player at 60% volume can damage your hearing, so surely my speakers in my car would. How many dB do you think my speakers will go at maximum including the bass? And if I put the bass on the max and put it at volume 8 out of 30 do you think that'd cause damage?


Firstly, with regard to Ztevie's statement: 60% of what?

Let's please stop comparing volume control positions. As I said in a previous post, treat 0dB as flat out and minus infinity as silent, or off.


If you use lots of bass boost then you will need more powerful amplifiers and speakers that can handle the power. Bass is very demanding of amps and speakers. To get strong bass you need to move LOTS of AIR. Amplifier watts alone don't resolve this. Sub-woofer placement and phase cancellation make a far bigger difference to the quality of the sound you think you're listening to.

If you're using the bass EQ set to max then there's little amplifier current reserves to deal with anything else.

This will limit the maximum SPL possible.

If I were to guess I'd say you might achieve 102-103 dBA.

Go and listen to a symphony orchestra live. It's disturbingly loud. This is can possibly be equated to about 109-112dBA

To truly reproduce that dynamic range across the whole audio spectrum you will probably need about 3kW of continuous output power and speakers that can handle such programme level peaks.
 
So I'd only get to about 100dB at the most? So what you're saying is I could put all the bass, treble, loudness, volume etc. up to the max and it wouldn't damage my hearing permanently (because 100dB wouldn't damage hearing if it was only for a minute or two, and I would never play it at full blast longer than that lol). And also since I'm playing it at volume 8 out of 30 and there's not much bass, one would assume that can't be much more than 80dB? So basically I can do whatever I like with the settings and volume cause it won't damage my hearing, is that right?
 
Pretty much yes. 80dBA is probably a good guess and yes again, that will not damage your hearing in the slightest. Even with all the EQ wound up to max.

You might find the odd programme peak (loud bit - kick bass, for example) might push it up 10dB or so but is only for a very short time.
 
What about when I had ringing in my ears the other day?

I'm not a neuroscientist but if I were a gambler I'd plonk five hundred quid on your hearing being absolutely fine.

We need to take the incessant nanny state missives a little more lightly in my opinion. I played for a dozen years or so in a couple of very viable money earning covers bands. And the stage levels were high. Unavoidably so. It was quite common for each of us to have a 500 watt floor monitor point straight at us so we could hear the vocals clearly and pitch our own correctly.

And virtually every gig I'd have ringing ears for the whole drive back home - quite often 2-3 hours.

And the ringing persisted.

Next morning - all gone. And my hearing is still very very acute.

Some witter on about it catching up later in life. There's no evidence to suggest this actually happens.

Don't spend the next forty years in purgatory waiting to suddenly go deaf as a result of a few loud gigs.
 
Damn when I first looked at that I thought it said you are a neuroscientist lol.
Well I haven't noticed any hearing problems.. but I don't think I would notice if I had any anyway...
 
Damn when I first looked at that I thought it said you are a neuroscientist lol.
Well I haven't noticed any hearing problems.. but I don't think I would notice if I had any anyway...

You'll be fine. It takes a lot of repeated exposure to very high SPLs (sound pressure levels) over years to start accumulating significant, or even noticeable harm. For example, operating a road drill four hours a day for fours years without any hearing protection might cause some loss of top end treble acuteness.
 
What about the dude who said keep your music at a level your ears a comfortable with then when they adjust to the music don't be tempted to turn it up?
And I've heard a few DJs saying they've noticed as the years have gone by they are listening to music on their headphones at a much higher volume. Wouldn't this be due to deafness from loud music?
 
High quality studio headphones might be able to shove in higher than sensible levels. As might DJ headphones to be able to get over the level of the house PA.

But were talking about far higher levels than any car system will achieve.

Now please stop worrying yourself, Chris.

You'll wind up with perfect hearing but suffering from severe anxiety and stress as a result of the worry.
 
Ha ha ha this is just gonna go on and on. I suggest you listen to it as loud as you like.If you get ringing in your ears turn it down a bit the next time.
 
That's 2 lines! PG!

Personally I would not chance it at all. I have a very cautious approach to life to the point of paranoia but thats me!
 
Me too but I'm trying to be less paranoid now
Please don't reply here anymore though, the line has been drawn

__
 
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