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Loudness Perception Change?


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About a month ago i was watching TV when my mum (of 65 years of age) comes in and says "You've got that loud, turn it down!"

 

Now, when you hear someone that old complaining it's too loud i knew that was something to be worried about.

 

After a few people suggested i was having things too loud i went for a hearing test at the local specialist centre. To my slight surprise my hearing is almost perfect for my age apart from a slight mid dip in my left ear (which he attributed to a little ear wax buildup)

 

For the last two years i've been wearing custom moulded ER 25's when doing live sound / going to gigs / at night clubs but honestly thought i would have done some damage in the years before when i was less careful...

 

Is it possible that my mental threshold of what i consider "loud enough" has changed since i have been exposed to roughly 90-110dB four times a week? Has anyone else experienced anything similar?

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I've definitely got some mild hearing loss and tinnitus, but if anything, noise bother me more now. I love loud music, but loud TV or talking is really annoying. What I really have trouble with now is hearing conversation if there's any kind of background noise.

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I'm aware of the shorter term condition called Threshold Shift, but I can also see how it would affect your perception over the longer term. We learned about this in studio recording classes and were warned not to monitor too loud, even though it was (and probably still is) the norm. Your hearing starts to protect itself by "tightening up" as I remember it. So your perception of what is loud, and also your perceived frequency balance changes. You'll tend to mix brighter and louder as it progresses.

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Also, a lot of TV programming is just intentionally designed to sound blaring loud at any SPL.

 

 

The television commercials are often substantially louder than the televisions programming. Back around 1999 I purchased a 36" SONY television (the series just before their WEGA Series). It had a feature I loved. It was some sort of compression or limiter which kept the television commercials at the same volume as the television programming. I don't know why I don't see it on their newer models. I sold that television when I moved and regretted it ever since.

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Also, a lot of TV programming is just intentionally designed to sound blaring loud at any SPL.

 

SPL volume and information quantity volume are two seperate issues.

 

I cannot absorb (distill) that which I'm not familiar with as well as I can that which I am familar with. More specifically (for example) I cannot drive a road I'm unfamiliar with or play a video game I'm unfamiliar with, or play a song, or mix a band that I'm unfamiliar with as well as that which I'm am familiar with. Similarily, I tend to like music or any other auditory stimulation louder than that which I'm unfamiliar with.

 

I suspect mum walked in on a teevee show she wasn't following.

 

Partake in a chili cook-off sometime to see how all this relates.

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