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AirPods causing tinnitus?

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Re: AirPods causing tinnitus?

#31

Post by grogenaut »

I highly suspect wearing mx3s in my home office with needless noise cancellation on during the first 1.2 years of the pandemic gave me tinnitus... Esp paired with a barely perceptible capacitor wine from a printer. That probably enter frequency is about where my tinnitus frequency is. I don't use noise cancellation anymore. Switched to some Sennheiser game ones ... Noise cancellation was useful in the office... But home office is silent

I'm betting there will be some huge class actions

Re: AirPods causing tinnitus?

#32

Post by cwales95 »

This is very interesting. I've noticed my tinnitus has seemed to be worse as of late. I exclusively use AirPods Pro. I wouldn't say I listen to loud music, but I'm wondering if the noise cancellation could have something to do with it...

Re: AirPods causing tinnitus?

#33

Post by xattt »

jokoon wrote: post #16

I suspect all ear plugs will always cause tinnitus. Having sound emitted so close to your ear drum is not a good idea. Not to mention that often, air cannot escape, which increase energy and/or air pressure inside the ear canal. A better alternative would be to have helicopter-type headset (not as much soundproof, though), so that you won't increase volume to mask surrounding noise in public transport or outside.

I thought the specific purpose of a helicopter headset was noise isolation, given the high noise levels of rotorcraft.

Re: AirPods causing tinnitus?

#34

Post by noarchy »

garyfirestorm wrote: post #21
blindriver wrote: post #4

I wonder if it's the noise cancellation causing problems. I definitely hear a high-pitched noise from the noise cancellation feature and rarely use it at all specifically because of that, except very infrequently like on planes. Maybe the high frequency noise is damaging the ear drums at high frequencies? But I can definitely say I do not have tinnitus despite wearing AirPod Maxes quite often.

Ummmm. ANC attenuates certain frequencies and fails to attenuate other frequencies. Which you would end up hearing anyway if you weren’t wearing the headphones. So effectively the sound power reaching your ears didn’t change for those frequencies. I have worked on ANC systems in automotive applications.

> Ummmm

Serious question, because I see it so often: what are these fillers meant to achieve?

Re: AirPods causing tinnitus?

#35

Post by code_runner »

I love my AirPod pros and I just leave them in for hours with ANC on because they are comfy and it’s nice. Depends on the day if they get uncomfortable, but no issues here.

I’ve rarely had the “pressure” people talk about with ANC so maybe some are just predisposed somehow.

Re: AirPods causing tinnitus?

#36

Post by jjcon »

splap wrote: post #25

I started getting spasms of my tensor tympani muscle around the time I began using AirPods with noise cancellation. Could hear it clearly and had a doc visually confirm. Correlation not causation, but weird enough that a stopped using them.

Interesting same thing happened to me - a very strange sensation. I was using Galaxy Buds every day for work and have since stopped using any earbuds and the issue has pretty much gone away. Can’t say for sure it was the buds but… felt correlated enough that I’m wary to use them again.

Re: AirPods causing tinnitus?

#37

Post by mattmaroon »

coffeebeqn wrote: post #17
causality0 wrote: post #7

Sometimes I wonder about electronic noise cancellation. On most of the headphones and earbuds I've tried it on, it's felt like having cotton rammed into my ears. It almost feels like a sonic version of having minor surgery/dental work with local anesthetic, like my ear is being absolutely blasted with something I can't actually hear. I worry about what the side effects could be. After all, you can't see ultraviolet l…

To me it feels like pressure or a vacuum. I don’t know enough about physics is it just that active noise cancelling is increasing the total stimulus to your eardrum and it just sounds better because they cancel each other out but physically it’s still more soundwaves to absorb. I only use active when I vacuum pretty much. Sometimes if the kids are really loud or there’s some obnoxious background noise

No, it’s the opposite actually, when it works. Sound is just a pressure wave traveling through air. By outputting a diametrically opposed sound wave, you’re zeroing out the pressure. Noise canceling, when it works, lessening the pressure hitting your ear. If it really want to learn more, just look up YouTube videos on destructive interference.

The problem is that it isn’t always able to do that perfectly so it could situationally increase the decibels for very short times.

Re: AirPods causing tinnitus?

#38

Post by ctoth »

projectazorian wrote: post #20
makk wrote: post #2

Based on personal subjective experience, my AirPods Max have definitely worsened my tinnitus. Given my 30-year history of tinnitus, I'm very careful about volume levels and I am certain that "too loud, too long" is not the thing that's made things worse for me. The only thing that changed is I started using AirPods, specifically the Max. I immediately noticed, when I first put them on, that I could hear better with t…

TMJ problem maybe? You unconsciously clenched your jaw in just the wrong way upon hearing an unexpected noise and it caused a problem with your jaw joint, possibly exacerbated by the headphone in your ear canal? It’s a common cause of tinnitus from what I hear, and anecdotally, my tinnitus is worse when my TMJ is worse. But mine is mild and intermittent so wouldn’t want to compare to your situation.

Re: your username You might enjoy the new alternate history of Project Azorian that Turtledove just came out with[0].

[0]: https://www.amazon.com/Three-Miles-Down-Harry-Turtledove-ebo...

Re: AirPods causing tinnitus?

#39

Post by moomoo11 »

I’ve been using ANC headphones basically 24/7 for years.

I enjoy the silence. I wish in the future there’s a way to do this via a brain chip or something and maybe even selectively completely filter out noise.

Re: AirPods causing tinnitus?

#40

Post by rajamaka »

grogenaut wrote: post #31

I highly suspect wearing mx3s in my home office with needless noise cancellation on during the first 1.2 years of the pandemic gave me tinnitus... Esp paired with a barely perceptible capacitor wine from a printer. That probably enter frequency is about where my tinnitus frequency is. I don't use noise cancellation anymore. Switched to some Sennheiser game ones ... Noise cancellation was useful in the office... But h…

I have worn mx4s for 4 years in my home office for over 10 each day with noise cancelling. No issues.
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