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Just Wear Headphones

mattblodgett.com

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Re: Just Wear Headphones

#171

Post by mersault »

MetaCosm wrote: post #84
mondoshawan wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How about both? Taking BART into SF for an hour every day, then wearing headphones the entire workday because of the open floor plan. I do this now -- pretty worried about my hearing...

Focus on noise isolation. Using ER-4P ( https://www.etymotic.com/consumer/earphones/er4.html ) with triple-flange tips is about the best you can get. Better even than $1000+ customs (exception made for Noble silicon customs).

Any reason to go with the ER-4P over the hf5 or hf3 product line, if I'm not looking for studio mastering grade audio reproduction?

Put another way, judged purely on niose reduction is there much difference between the ER-4P and the rest of the Etymotic product line?

Re: Just Wear Headphones

#172

Post by kazinator »

drzaiusapelord wrote: post #144
icebraining wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uh, seriously? Right now we have a huge public health issue with young people and hearing loss. Isn't that the best kind of thing to use in a scam? Much more believable :) Parent didn't say "it's a scam", (s)he said "get a second opinion", which sounds like good advise to me.

The parent very much suggested the doctor was being dishonest. Parent wrote: "Maybe they are trying to sell you on expensive hearing aids." I don't see how anyone could interpret that in any other way.

That is correct, however, I didn't suggest that the the entire public health problem of hearing loss is only a false perception that is result of wide-spread overdiagnosis, which was the bulk of your counter-argument to my post. (If that were the case, what use would there be in getting a second opinion?)

I wouldn't jump to any hasty conclusions based on being tested once, with one audiologist's piece of equipment. How do you know it didn't have a calibration problem or other malfunction. Bad gain in some analog circuit or whatever, and the measurement is decibels off.

Also, I'd have my ear canals cleaned thoroughly, and stay away from loud noise for a couple of days before the test, and any foods or medications that can affect hearing. If you're on antibiotics for something, don't book a hearing test. You want your real hearing tested.

(I was on ciprofloxacin recently, and things didn't sound right until a day after the last pill. My Sennheiser phones sounded like $5 dollar store earbuds, and I couldn't get a decent tone out of my guitar amplifier rig, though I played with the 32 band equalizer and other controls endlessly.)

Re: Just Wear Headphones

#173

Post by flanbiscuit »

darylteo wrote: post #3

The "being watched" feeling is the big one for me. I don't mind wearing headphones because I love listening to music and I don't listen to it that loudly, but the sensation of feeling someone's eyes on you (to catch you on the split second you've refreshed reddit or facebook or something) is incredibly profound on the time it takes to zone into zen mode. Anecdotally funnily enough, the opposite seems to happen for me…

When I consciously think about someone who happens to see my screen at work I can easily brush the thought off and tell myself I don't care. But my subconscious thinks differently because I can feel myself get a little tense when someone comes up to, or walk by, my desk. I get the same feeling whether my screen is showing me doing work or not. It's an annoying feeling.

Re: Just Wear Headphones

#174

Post by seanp2k2 »

wcunning wrote: post #148

As several commentors have mentioned, in ear monitor (IEM) type headphones have pretty good sound isolation properties. It's important to note that active noise cancelling (ANC) headphones increase the total sound pressure on your ear drums, while IEMs decrease it, overall. With ANC headphones, you have the environmental sound pressure added to the cancellation signal (which cancels according to perception, not accor…

I thought that physically, it is lower-pressure, since sound is physical, and the inverted sound waves that the ANC generates cancel out those from the noise source. Looking at the diagram on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active_noise_control , I'm not getting how the amplitude is higher, since the resulting sound is quieter, which I'm translating to lower SPL (lower acoustical pressure).

Thought experiment: suppose you have super-loud bass coming from a single point-source at 30hz. You can feel this in your chest. Now, you put a second point-source 180 degrees out of phase in the same place. What would the pressure on your chest feel like? How is this different from how ANC works?

Re: Just Wear Headphones

#175

Post by dmritard96 »

AdamN wrote: post #2

I used to use construction 'headphones'. They do nothing but dampen outside noise - no music. It's a pretty good solution ... but a solution to a stupid problem because the right solution is more productive working conditions.

used these back in highschool while doing homework, took them straight out of my garage and put them on my desk. they work great

Re: Just Wear Headphones

#176

Post by geebee »

Is it time to get depressed yet? This has been a topic for such a long time. It was in people ware in 1987. I thought I discovered the topic when Joel (On Sofware) wrote about it in 2000. While a few people seem to enjoy open offices, the overwhelming majority of developers I know, or who chime in on HN, value a quiet place to work and dislike open offices.

And yet, not only has nothing changed, it seems to be getting worse. It couldn't be more clear to me that developers, at least on this issue, simply have no clout as a profession. There may be a few individuals who can make demands, but on the balance, these are decisions imposed on us, as a group, and we are apparently unable to do anything about it.

The really sad thing is, this isn't a situation where we're asking to fly first class, or for more vacation. We're talking about asking for something that will make us more productive and increase the value we largely hand over to our employers, simply because it's depressing to not be able to do a good job due to distractions.

So yeah, I'm depressed about it. There was a time when I read these essays and felt a bit more charged up, like people were starting to understand something important and that things would change. Well, now we have open offices.

I'll finish with another variant on my broken record: the industry talks constant about the critical shortage of software engineers, but it won't give them a quiet place to work. Actually, that last sentence is too optimistic - it won't allow them a quiet place to work. Those places exist, but companies often demand that their programmers spend 8 hours a day in places that are too noisy for focus.

Re: Just Wear Headphones

#177

Post by delinka »

I've carefully tuned my use of headphones and music to my preferences and to minimize distractions. Here's my list:

    1. Earbuds that block sound, or over-the-ear headphones that block sound
    2. Nothing with lyrics. Voices are distracting. I'm really just here for the
       noise that's not other humans having a conversation.
    3. Use a streaming service that tailors the music to my preferences. 
       Pandora was my favorite, but I'm currently on Spotify. I don't have to 
       curate my own lists and I still get music that's all similar and not 
       distracting. It usually ends up being trance-like. Anything "jammin" or
       "fun" is indeed distracting.
What I'm not getting here is how the generalization "music is a distraction" is justified. Was a large sample of music types used?

As for "being watched," I'm not particularly ashamed of my work habits. I do indeed post to HN (in case you didn't notice), read news, read comics (oh, forgot to catch up on those this morning...), keep up with my online peers, ... and I work. Watch me all day if you like. I'd prefer that you also get work done, though.

Re: Just Wear Headphones

#178

Post by kazinator »

icebraining wrote: post #170
drzaiusapelord wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The parent very much suggested the doctor was being dishonest. Parent wrote: "Maybe they are trying to sell you on expensive hearing aids." I don't see how anyone could interpret that in any other way.

Suggested they can be being dishonest.

Not even dishonest, but biased by an obvious vested interest, which subconsciously leads them to exaggerate the diagnosis. Some people have it as a personality trait to make mountains out of molehills. For any alleged condition, if you get three opinions from three specialists, they will differ even though everyone is honest.

You might actually have the hearing of a 45-year-old at 32, but due to some interpretive latitude and instrumentation error, they can get away with reporting it as a 66-year-old.

Re: Just Wear Headphones

#179

Post by seanp2k2 »

BFay wrote: post #42
calpaterson wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It might be helpful if you could offer citations for that. I find it hard to judge these competing claims

None of that comment seemed unreasonable to me - I've had large over-ear sets of headphones that require me to turn the volume up pretty high. It takes more to drive them, that's why some people own headphone amps. Compare that to IEM's like the Sennheiser cx 300 - 5% of max volume at my computer might be too loud. And it would surprise me if headphone usage at reasonable volumes is worse than going to loud concerts,…

If anyone is curious, this is what the sensitivity measurement is on headphones: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Headphones#Sensitivity

TL;DR "The sensitivity of headphones is usually between about 80 and 125 dB/mW and usually measured at 1 kHz." and note that since dB is logarithmic, every 6dB is 2x the energy (human-perceived "doubling of volume" is typically ~10dB; see also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fletcher%E2%80%93Munson_curves )

Re: Just Wear Headphones

#180

Post by kazinator »

monksy wrote: post #165
drzaiusapelord wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uh, seriously? Right now we have a huge public health issue with young people and hearing loss. It isn't some scam. Turns out the ipod/iphone revolution came with some external costs. http://learningenglish.voanews.com/content/one-billion-young... "If a person takes a subway to go from one place to the other for half an hour in the morning and a half an hour in the evening, and every day has to turn up the volume on…

Here's where I'm coming from: I wish they would push to make the train a bit quieter. (I'm thankful for having a good network in Chicago) Take a ride to the airport on the blueline in Chicago, fly to London, and when you're on the tube you'll notice a world of difference in the noise level. It goes from a loud clanking to the hum of the tube.

I believe that light commuter trains should have rubberized wheels. Much of the noise is steel-on-steel action.

If you've ever had a rubber bushing wear out in a car's suspension linkage, you know what I'm talking about: thunk, clang, squeak!

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