Hi. just wondering if anyone has ever suffered some permanent hearing damage from going to gigs? I saw Tankard a week ago and my ears are still ringing like fuck. Being that i live out in the middle of nowhere i only got to the ciity for 5-10 gigs a year, i'm now concerned i may have contracted Tinnitus, and considering how quiet it is here at night the silence literally is deafening!

Metal will impair your hearing, destroy your neck and make you worship satan. Deal with it.

Make sure you wear ear plugs to any show you go to, regardless of genre. I have mild Tinnitus from a few years of going to shows without ear plugs because I was an idiot teenager.

Definitely this. Anyone trying to tell you otherwise is objectively wrong. That said, the shows I did happen to go to without hearing protection weren't horrible but also not that pleasant.

I'm only eighteen and I've already felt these effects from headbanging.

When i first started going to gigs the sound volume and more impact on the short term but these days I adjust very fast. However i feel like im lucky for 2 reasons, dutch sound laws are quite strict and i seem to have luck with my ears. I never get ringing just this weird numblikeness which apparently its a sign of your body protecting itself. I apparently can hear better than most of my peers too.
I have used ear plugs but it required a lot of fiddling to find something that would lower the volume in the right way without going overboard with it by the time i did i lost my (fairly expensive) plugs.

I do definitely use plugs when rehearsing with my band though. That is something on a other level volume wise.

I have been doing this lately but for this gig I accidentally left them in the car so didn't worry about... idiot I am

is there potential for it to get worse even with wearing earplugs at future gigs?

as far as i know its a sliding slope. Once you get it it is bound to get worse if you dont take much stricter precautions.

I've been to 7 concerts, and 4 of them I went without hearing protection. Luckily I didn't suffer any hearing damage whatsoever, even after being literally pressed right up against a speaker for about 40 minutes of a show back in 2003. Then I thought about it and realized that I value quiet time a LOT, and could even become suicidal if I got tinnitus and could no longer enjoy sitting in silence. So I got a good pair of earplugs, and now I can go to shows, come home, and hear everything just as well as before I left. So wear 'em before it's too late, kids.

Two places to always wear ear plugs: metal concerts, and your mom's house.

Ear plugs all the time for everything. I plan on listening to my collection all my life, not just a tiny bit of it.

I'll never forget seeing an old dude at a show wearing ear plugs. He was in it for the long game.

Always wear earplugs at gigs, you'll protect your hearing and get the moment of satisfaction of when you're stepping out of the venue, pulling them out, and listening to your friends who had mocked you for wearing them saying any variant of "my fucking ears are killing me!"

Yea, after attending a metal venue, I noticed an unbearable amount of tennitis that lasted for days. I think its worth ridicule by friends to get yourself some protection. When you turn 40, you will still be able to hear while your friends can't.

Every few months there's one of these threads. Earring loss is permanent, you're hearing won't magically grow back.

These days I carry earplugs with me pretty much everywhere because it's not just concerts that are retardedly loud, you've got night clubs and bars that usually crank up the music, construction sites, gardening equipment, train and car horns, gyms, announcement speakers, even the odd retail store. Most of these can be avoided by simply standing a good distance away but for anything else, where you're stuck there, it's better to wear them.

I do find it funny and backwards that people into metal who mostly wear shocking or confronting images for display worry about how they'll look with earplugs.

Not always. Jewelry stores usually stock extra pairs, so it's worth calling and seeing about a replacement.

Yep. I'll admit I set myself up for that one.

I rather not find out if it's permanent or reversible.

Ear plugs for shows, ear plugs for practice, ear plugs for even just playing some guitar at a lower vol. ear plugs for any sort of equipment I'm running, ear plugs for noisy vehicles I'm driving. ear plugs always ... pretty much the same as volutetheswarth. I like being able to hear.

well its been 2 weeks now and it hasnt gone away so i think its pretty safe to assume its permanent time to go get a hearing test i think

Lol!! That's great

I've been to 2 shows and 1 all-day festival this year, all without any protection. I've had to cover/plug my ears occasionally, during the shows but haven't had any major problems. After reading the other posts, I'll probably invest in some earplugs soon though. I use ear buds during work, ( at a computer 8 hours a day) but I keep the volume average/lower, not blaring. Listening to Necrophagist at 7:30am does a body good.

I have 24/7 tinnitus from a non-music related incident. It's definitely something you want to avoid, and I don't want you or anyone else to end up like me. Another hobby of mine is firearms, so I've done a lot of reading about sound and hearing protection.

Sound is measured in decibels. The scale is logarithmic, so every 3 decibels is a doubling of sound. Any sound over 85 decibels can cause hearing damage. The safe exposure time is roughly cut in half every 3 decibel increase.

So 85 Db is safe for about 8 hours. That's roughly the level of city traffic. For comparison, a refrigerator hum is about 40 Db, most conversation is about 65 DB. Most rock or metal concerts are between 105-110 Db. Anything over 140 (jet engine) will cause instant hearing damage. Most firearms are around 150-170.

Anytime you are exposed to loud sound, and your ears are ringing, that means you've incurred hearing damage. The sound of tinnitus comes from tiny "hairs" in your ear that detect sound being broken, which gives off false sound to the brain.

Anytime your hearing is muffled, that means that a small part of your hearing is gone. Most will likely come back, but a little won't.

You should definitely wear earplugs at concerts. The effectiveness of these is determined by NRR rating. 30 NRR means it blocks 30 decibels. The best over-the-counter block 33 Db.

If you bring foam earplugs, it's important to put them in correctly. So many people shove them in, or stick them in halfway. That won't protect you fully.

You need to roll it up tight, about the size of a pencil lead. Then, physically pull your ear up with your other hand (to straighten out your ear canal) and put the plug in as far as it naturally goes.

Like this - http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=pl ... PNPZJingZA

I also sometimes just use these, and always put them in my pocket as backup even when I have foam plugs. The protection isn't as high, but no rolling, no fuss. And they're reusable.

http://www.earplugstore.com/purefoearpln.html

My hearing is not too great or people just suck at communication. I remember cranking Obituary's Cause of Death in my headphones to ignore my parents and that probably hurt them, but I have a really hard time understanding random people and have tried getting hearing aids for that, but it never worked out.

Honestly, I think I tore myself up a bit from going to gigs when I was younger - mainly sludge gigs - and standing so fucking close to the amps with no hearing protection and headbanging like a maniac at power metal shows. People think it'll take ages for these things to effect you, but it won't. I now wear Hearos at every gig I go to - it makes the sound better and saves my ears. My neck...well, that just don't work no more.

Speaking on loud bands, I'm trying to think back to who the loudest band live was. I'm not thinking of Manowar, I'm thinking of another band that was said to have played so loud that people actually started throwing up in the crowds.

my bloody valentine goes at like 150db

I really don't understand the need to play so loud. I've been to shows where it felt like my heart was going to explode every time the bass drum was hit. The idea that you need to wear earplugs to save your hearing is ridiculous. Seems like playing at a reasonable volume would be a much better idea.

My guess is that most of the people there already have hearing problems, but yeah if it vibrates enough to make you physically ill that's fucked up. That and I think its for the shock effect. Now that I think about it I've been around guns without hearing protection.

Loud is so bad but it feels so good. Go deaf and worship Satan.

In all seriousness, I have permanent tinnitus at 22. It might be quiet so far, but the long-reaching implications are unpleasant to think about and I wouldn't put my hopes up for modern medical science. Be a man, wear ear plugs.