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Apple Hearing Study shares preliminary insights on tinnitus

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Re: Apple Hearing Study shares preliminary insights on tinnitus

#4

Post by outside415 »

the newer generations of AirPods absolutely trigger tinnitus for me. The gen 1 AirPod Pros are the best. I really have to crank the volume to trigger it. The Gen 2 AirPod Pros are the worst. Even low volumes rip apart my ears. Constant ringing all of the time. The USB-C Airpod Pros Gen 2 are ok at low to mid volumes, can't use them at high volumes what so ever though, they also let in a terrible amount of wind noise for outdoor activity which makes them unusable since turning up the volume to mute the wind noise causes tinnitus for me.

The AirPod Pro Max also get too loud, they are ok at low to mid volumes, high volumes = extreme tinnitus.

HomePods are similar, I can only have them on at volume levels I appreciate for short periods of time or I get tinnitus.

Compare this with my old sennheisers and audeze headphones, 0 tinnitus even at extreme volumes. Similar for my in ear Mochi headphones.

Or compare the HomePods to my Panasonic Surround Sound Speakers for my TV from 12 years ago that I still use, I can make the walls shake with no tinnitus. If I turn up my homepods to a volume close to that my ears will be ringing for hours or days after. It really bums me out, I wish I understood what is changing about the technology. Like are they going from Analog to Digital and is digital more harsh or something? I don't know.

Re: Apple Hearing Study shares preliminary insights on tinnitus

#5

Post by extr »

I have mild tinnitus and the best advice I've ever read on the internet for it is: Stop reading. Don't look up information about tinnitus. Don't think about it. If you happen to notice it, try to distract yourself immediately. There maybe legitimate hearing damage but for the psychological aspect, the more you think about it the worse it becomes. I think I saw a quora answer somewhere where the doctor said "Nobody complains about tinnitus while playing Playstation". And it's very true. Until this post just now, I hadn't thought about it in weeks (months?).

Re: Apple Hearing Study shares preliminary insights on tinnitus

#6

Post by radicaldreamer »

outside415 wrote: post #4

the newer generations of AirPods absolutely trigger tinnitus for me. The gen 1 AirPod Pros are the best. I really have to crank the volume to trigger it. The Gen 2 AirPod Pros are the worst. Even low volumes rip apart my ears. Constant ringing all of the time. The USB-C Airpod Pros Gen 2 are ok at low to mid volumes, can't use them at high volumes what so ever though, they also let in a terrible amount of wind noise…

There have been theories about ANC headphones, earphones, and in-ear-monitors causing tinnitus over the years, but nothing concrete with evidence.

Re: Apple Hearing Study shares preliminary insights on tinnitus

#7

Post by acdha »

Eumenes wrote: post #3

Interesting, so Apple is providing the cause (Airpods) and treatment (Airpods) for tinnitus!

Where did you see cause? The paragraph in that section mentions noise but that seems like a weird criticism of a product which has a bunch of features to prevent excessive noise exposure. What would be more interesting to me would be research into whether in-ear designs or active noise cancellation correlate with this at all since those are something humans didn’t evolve with.

Re: Apple Hearing Study shares preliminary insights on tinnitus

#8

Post by jerlam »

cromka wrote: post #2

Wonder how will they deal with AirPods themselves losing ability to emit frequencies over time, to prevent false positives/negatives. AFIK they continue to replace AirPods after testing them for sound being out of range.

Do the Airpods perform some kind of self-diagnostic to confirm that it can emit needed frequencies for the hearing test? It would be a PR nightmare if Apple was giving diagnoses for hearing loss, when in reality people were being asked to hear a sound that the Airpods could not emit.

Re: Apple Hearing Study shares preliminary insights on tinnitus

#9

Post by kmfrk »

acdha wrote: post #7
Eumenes wrote: post #3

Interesting, so Apple is providing the cause (Airpods) and treatment (Airpods) for tinnitus!

Where did you see cause? The paragraph in that section mentions noise but that seems like a weird criticism of a product which has a bunch of features to prevent excessive noise exposure. What would be more interesting to me would be research into whether in-ear designs or active noise cancellation correlate with this at all since those are something humans didn’t evolve with.

It's in reference to conversations like this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35023808.

Re: Apple Hearing Study shares preliminary insights on tinnitus

#10

Post by brainzap »

extr wrote: post #5

I have mild tinnitus and the best advice I've ever read on the internet for it is: Stop reading. Don't look up information about tinnitus. Don't think about it. If you happen to notice it, try to distract yourself immediately. There maybe legitimate hearing damage but for the psychological aspect, the more you think about it the worse it becomes. I think I saw a quora answer somewhere where the doctor said "Nobody co…

true, once you learn about something you tend to focus on it. Once I associated my neighbours noise with a positive thoughts I stopped to notice it.
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