Skip to content
HearingTracker
Log in

Are headphones safe?

This topic is closed.

11 replies3.9k viewsLast reply

Link to this topic

Is it o.k. to wear headphones at a moderate volume while wearing hearing aids? My intuition is that headphones might be counter-indicated for people with hearing loss because of the possibility of further damage to those little hairs whose name I forget which conduct sound. Hopefully this is just another one of my mistaken ideas!

–Jeff

7 people in this conversation3 min readJump to latest

I don’t see why it wouldn’t be safe to wear headphones on top of as long as you keep the volume to a moderate level. I do it all the times.

Yeah, loud volume can cause hearing damage in general, but I think the loud volume generated by the HA at the frequencies where the hearing loss is to compensate for the loss wouldn’t cause further damage at those frequencies anyway. Otherwise wearing HAs would make your hearing get worse progressively and I don’t think there’s been any indication that shows this.

I also think that wearing headphones at a moderate volume is ok. Exposure to any loud noise in the environment is worse. The key is to have the discipline to keep the volume at a low enough level to enjoy listening, but not do additional damage. That said, I gave up shotgun shooting, cuz even with aids turned OFF in my ears and earmuffs over my ears, the volume was just scary loud. I simply have no margin for more loss, and God knows my ear’s hair cells are bald as an egg since birth. <:-/

I often use my over-the-ear headphones with my in. Other than a short bit of feedback when I first put them on, they co-exist peacefully.

Thanks everyone. Again, I thought that perhaps the close proximity and enclosed nature of sound through headphones might be detrimental to hearing over the long term. Good news, at lowish volumes this seems to not be an issue.

The only tme I wear headphones at all (and that’s w. on and in ears) is on plane watching TV. No problem. I have worn a headset on one ear (over ear style) for hours each day. Am on phone a lot. No problem.

There is typically around 95 of ambient noise in an airplane. I don’t think I would want to pump more sound into my ears over that background roar. Instead, I think I would remove my hearing aids and use my Shure sound-isolating earbuds. And I would use an equalizer if available to roughly approximate the sound profile that the hearing aids are providing.

(I don’t have hearing aids yet, but probably will soon.)

Edited

A noise cancellation headphones would help not make you have to pump more sound over the background roar because the background roar should have been tamed down by quite a bit by the noise cancellation. Yes, you’ll have to turn up the volume higher than you normally do at home. But if the headphones has decent noise cancellation (and I find Bose headphones to have the most noise cancellation), then it shouldn’t be too bad.

Another thing I find useful is that even if I’m not listening to anything on the plane (like if I’m sleeping or reading), if I turn off the mic volume (but leave them in my ears) and wear the NC headphones on top, it would help cut down the noise by quite a bit.

@Volusiano said:

A noise cancellation headphones would help not make you have to pump more sound over the background roar because the background roar should have been tamed down by quite a bit by the noise cancellation. Yes, you’ll have to turn up the volume higher than you normally do at home. But if the headphones has decent noise cancellation (and I find Bose headphones to have the most noise cancellation), then it shouldn’t be too bad.

Noise cancellation headphones in my experience generate too much audio noise (hiss).

I have the bose Noise cancellation headphones and there is no hiss when I use them I even use them at time to cancel the sounds around me and not even listen to music or anything else.

Edited

Same here with my Bose QC3 noise cancellation headphones -> no hiss. But then if the hiss is on the high ends then maybe my hearing loss already helps block out the hiss. :slight_smile:

Active discussions

What the forum has been talking about this week.