We don’t give the ear nearly enough credit, despite the fact that it is a fascinating organ. Before it’s too late, too many individuals take their hearing for granted. Did you realize, though, that prolonged exposure to loud noises can harm your hearing? Have you ever wondered whether bass is hazardous for your ears.
As well as being reasonable, the urge to listen to music at extremely loud volumes might result in lifelong hearing loss. We’ll talk about why listening to loud music is hazardous for your ears in this blog post, as well as whether or not bass and low frequencies in general are harmful.
Numerous causes, including aging, heredity, protracted exposure to loud noises, and even certain disorders, can result in hearing loss. You risk losing your hearing if you continuously listen to music through headphones at extremely loud volumes. Do you have any idea how many people, in the millions, have hearing loss? It’s a startling number, and as the population ages, it will only become worse.
A study by the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders estimates that between the ages of 20 and 69, approximately 32 million Americans have some sort of hearing loss or impairment (NIDCD). You don’t want to be one of them, believe us on that. The main offenders are parties, music festivals, and concerts; we’re not just talking about how loud they are, but also how long you listen to them.
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How Loud Should You Listen?
No matter how bass-heavy the music is, you should always set a volume limit for yourself. A sound’s volume is expressed in decibels. If you listen for a long time, you start to have problems at 85 dB. For comparison, the noise level of a blender or garbage disposal is about 85 dB.
You’ll start to suffer a greater risk of hearing loss at 120 dB. This noise level is comparable to that of a rock concert or a chainsaw. You will have temporary hearing loss if you listen at this volume for a prolonged period of time. If you develop this behavior as a habit, you risk lasting harm.
You must be vigilant about the levels of sound you are exposed to in order to completely avoid noise-induced hearing loss. The less time you can safely listen to a sound without harming your ears, the louder the sound is. You can safely listen to music for up to eight hours, for instance, if the volume is 85 decibels (dB). However, that duration drastically reduces when the loudness is increased to 95 dB.
Clubs and concerts are harmful since anything louder than 100 dB is dangerous and can harm you right away. A rocket launch has a noise level of 120 dB, which puts your hearing in serious danger if you are exposed to it. It’s crucial to remember that prolonged exposure to any noise above 85 dB can result in hearing loss of some kind. However, it’s doubtful that you will sustain any long-term harm if you are only exposed to 85 dB a few times every week or month.
Instead, you experience temporary short-term hearing loss that exclusively impacts the sound frequencies to which you were exposed. Even though this type of damage doesn’t result in long-term hearing loss, it might be bothersome if you have sensitive ears that get bothered by noise quickly.
Do bass and low frequencies play a role?
Sort of. Hearing loss can be influenced by bass and low frequencies. They are typically the last frequency range to be affected by hearing loss, as we have already mentioned. This is because they have lower pitches than higher-pitched noises, which make them easier to hear. Furthermore, people are more inclined to turn up the volume and expose themselves to hazardous sound levels since low-frequency noises are less bothersome than high-frequency ones.
Is bass bad for your ears?
Any sound louder than 80 dB has the potential to harm your ears over time, not simply the bass and low frequencies. The issue here isn’t with frequency. Hearing loud music around that frequency—the range of human voices and many other instruments—will naturally cause the ears the most discomfort because that frequency is the ear canal’s resonance frequency. The answer isn’t straightforward; it depends on how often and how strong the bass is. The same holds true for all other frequencies. Keep the noise down, however, if you’re at a concert or party to protect your hearing.