Quote:
Originally posted by Fletcher
While the assertions are a bit over the top... they're not altogether wrong. I have significant hearing loss in the 4kHz range (which is the range most greatly affected by "loud")...
4k is were most people start to lose their hearing, whether by abuse, old age, or a combination. I've heard audiologists refer to it as "the 4k notch."
Depending on how bad off you are, the notch typically centers around 4k and gets wider and deeper from there. Of course your high end tends to rolloff also.
When I was fitted for custom earplugs a few years ago, I was discussing this with the audiologist. She showed me some charts of other clients (carefully putting her thumb over the names, of course!

) She was comparing them to mine and pointing out how much worse they were.
The charts she showed me all looked like uncharted oceanic trenches, and were certainly much worse than mine. Scary worse!
I was 46 at the time and tested to have normal loss at 4k for a person my age. I'd started using foam plugs religiously when performing back in the early 80's.
Of course, I haven't gotten away completely free without paying some price for 30+ years of loud music, large caliber weapons, compressed air in shops, hot rods and motorcycles, etc. etc. I've come out of this all with a serious case of tinnitus and can't hear frequencies much over 11.5k.
"Will someone PPLEASE answer that phone??!!!!!!"
Anyway, back to the scary charts. After she pointed out to me how lucky I was to not have worse damage compared to these other patients, I asked her about their ages and history of exposure.
... they were ALL under 25 and she attributed the loss to wearing headphones listening to Walkmen.
Hey, it's a loud world out there. Let's be careful!