Tip of the Day: Protect Your Hearing
Tip of the Day: Protect Your Hearing
It's all fun and games until someone loses an eye, or in this case, their hearing. Even a modest sound system is capable of delivering sufficiently high SPLs to cause significant damage to your hearing over time. Investing in an SPL meter can be useful for things like system setup, but it is also an important tool to let you know whether you are indeed getting too much of a good thing. Have fun, but be careful!
You can stop by your local Radio Shack and pickup an SPL meter for about $50, or buy one online. As a cheaper alternative you can download an SPL meter app for your iOS or Android device; however, they are not as accurate as a stand alone SPL meter.
Once you are armed with your SPL meter, you can use the table below to help you gauge what is a safe listening level.
| LEVEL | OSHA MAX TIME | NIOSH MAX TIME | EPA MAX TIME |
| > 115 dB SPL | NONE | NONE | NONE |
| 115 dB SPL | 15 minutes | 28 seconds | NONE |
| 112 dB SPL | 22 minutes 45 seconds | 56 seconds | NONE |
| 109 dB SPL | 34 minutes 28 seconds | 1 minute 52 seconds | NONE |
| 106 dB SPL | 47 minutes 38 seconds | 3 minutes 45 seconds | NONE |
| 103 dB SPL | 1 hour 20 minutes | 7 minutes 30 seconds | NONE |
| 100 dB SPL | 2 hours | 15 minutes | NONE |
| 97 dB SPL | 3 Hours | 30 minutes | 3 minutes |
| 94 dB SPL | 4 hours 36 minutes | 1 hour | 6 minutes |
| 91 dB SPL | 7 hours | 2 hours | 11 minutes 15 seconds |
| 88 dB SPL | 10 hours 30 minutes | 4 hours | 22 minutes 30 seconds |
| 85 dB SPL | 16 hours (protection) | 8 hours | 45 minutes |
| 82 dB SPL | 24 hours (continuous) | 16 hours | 1 hour 30 minutes |
| 79 dB SPL | 24 hours (continuous) | 24 hours (continuous) | 3 hours |
| 76 dB SPL | 24 hours (continuous) | 24 hours (continuous) | 6 hours |
| 73 dB SPL | 24 hours (continuous) | 24 hours (continuous) | 12 hours |
| 70 dB SPL | 24 hours (continuous) | 24 hours (continuous) | 24 hours (continuous) |
Source: http://midimagic.sgc-hosting.com/spldose.htm
The table shows a comparison among three different organizations and what they think is the maximum amount of time a person can hear a sound before it is damaging. As you can see, the recommendations are different because the methodology is different, but each is based off of cumulative exposure over a period of time (ie. 24hr). Still, there are some general principles that are useful in the home theater realm. Never listen to anything >115dB for sustained periods of time and even loud scenes around 100dB should be severely limited in exposure. If you find yourself at an event that is too loud but you cannot turn the volume down, try a pair of tuned earplugs. The V-Moda faders are a cheap way to bring down the volume but maintain high sound quality.
Source: Steve81 & Cliff Heyne
lsiberian;930460
Well timed. Especially with some of the posts I've read lately.
Honestly if you are in a quiet room 60 db will be plenty loud, but you really need to watch it in the car.
true and especially with ear-buds!
Honestly if you are in a quiet room 60 db will be plenty loud, but you really need to watch it in the car.