Making the Right Headphone Choices Can Prevent Hearing Loss

In our highly mobile society, more and more people are listening to music through headphones on a daily basis. Whether it’s the commute to work on the subway or the bus or just going for a jog, the rise in portable music players means that now it’s easier than ever to bring your favorite music with you wherever you go.

However, a lot of these new music devices come with a free pair of the wrong kind of headphones: ear buds. Ear buds actually sit in the ear’s canal, instead of on the surface of the ear, and the sort of sound that they deliver is more likely to cause hearing damage over time because it is piping the sound more directly, without any sort of cushion. Also important to consider is the fact that, because ear buds have no noise canceling quality to them, most people who are listening to their MP3 players with them have them turned up to a level that is already doing damage for hearing.

First and foremost, hearing problems can be minimized by, regardless of which type of headphones are being worn, always taking steps to ensure that they aren’t turned up to their maximum volume level. Some sets of headphones include their own volume control setting, so if you keep that at a mid-level and don’t turn up your music player past that, you’re doing a great deal of good for your hearing. After all, it’s not just loud concert-level noise that can cause trouble with your hearing. Something as simple as repeated exposure to music cranked up too loud through headphones can do damage, too, especially if it is a consistent part of your life.

Another thing to consider if tying to prevent hearing loss is investment in a better pair of headphones that will not require so much juice in terms of volume. A number of different companies, from high-end leaders in sound to hip and cutting-edge DJ outfitters, sell types of noise-cancelling headphones. There are numerous advantages to noise-cancelling headphones. The biggest is that instead of just upping the volume, these types of headphones have a built-in microphone that reads the ambient noise level of wherever you’re listening and actually helps to cancel it out. Noise-cancelling headphones also are never designed as ear buds, meaning that you will be receiving sound where your ear can handle it, not inside of it.

No matter what sort of headphones you are using, there are still some important steps to take when trying to avoid hearing problems. Setting the master volume on your MP3 player to something lower than its maximum capability is one really helpful move, and this can be done on pretty much every commercial player available, including iPods. Another thing to consider is not using portable music players so much in really noisy environments. If you are already being exposed to loud noises, like rush hour in the city, instead of straining to listen to your music over an already-bad-for-you din, why not wait it out and enjoy music somewhere more peaceful, where you can actually hear it?