High ambient noise forces listeners to raise volume toward hearing-loss levels

Evidence

One important feature relevant to obtaining good-quality audio listening is the relative levels of the wanted sound and unwanted sound such as local background acoustic noise. In environments such as aircraft cabins where the ambient acoustic noise level is high, it is not easy to obtain good-quality audio. This is particularly the case with the headphones provided to economy-class travelers, which are generally of a low quality that distorts the sound when the volume is turned up sufficiently high to hear the music or film soundtrack. There is also the danger that the overall sound level being presented (wanted signal plus the unwanted background noise) could even cause noise-induced hearing loss (see Section 2.5) depending on the volume of the wanted signal that is set. — David M. Howard, Jamie Angus, Acoustics and Psychoacoustics, 2562

Categorization

• XREF: Directly ties to the reader’s earlier notes on subway and aircraft noise exceeding safety thresholds, and to the noise-induced hearing loss material in Section 2.5. — connects to: Headphones originated as noise isolation for radio operators — Ville Pulkki, Matti Karjalainen, Communication Acoustics- An…, 476; Raising volume to overcome noise leads to discomfort and hearing damage; Recording studio background noise should approach the hearing threshold — Toole, Floyd E, Sound reproduction- the acoustics and…, 942 (+9 more)
• SEED: Angle: why the signal-to-noise ratio of your commute, not the quality of your headphones, determines whether listening damages your ears.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — David M. Howard, Jamie Angus, Acoustics and Psychoacoustics, 2562