How is your hearing?
Do you have a powerful 2x12 combo or head & 4x12 cab/s and like to crank it ocasionally, or even regularly? Loving Rock, I do, and it's something that holds that qualitity of ambivalence attributable to pleasure of emotion yet concern of reason being at odds with one another. My last hearing check, in a sound isolation audio test booth, was around 12 months ago.
[br]Wonders of this age of the internet, just like online guitar lessons I stumbled upon this today, and thought to share this as a timely reminder to check yours for the start of 2021, as hearing damage can be permanent. (Note: This is an AU site, but there may be a similiar available in the US, UK, NZ et al - a search should reveal.) It's a good indicative test for => further investigation required? yes/no.
I took the test using SONY MDR-XB400 headphones like these. They're not optimal, but I had them sitting next to me on the desk at the time. For a more accurate result I should have gone to my studio and retrieved my fully enclosed closed Superlux HD662 EVO Studio Monitor heaphones, but laziness won the moment. I'd have done so for a subsequent test had the result been less favourable raising cause for concern.
Snipped my results, inserted below, with some explanatory notes below the image why having a regular hearing check is salient to me and makes me cogent any time I choose to treat myself to 'a bit of let it rip' raucous, of limiting exposure to potentially damaging dB noise levels .
Can't be displeased with that result.
[u]Ok. Now the didactic chat[/u]. Why regular hearing checks should be [u]important to you[/u], particular to those youngsters out here who might have taken a curiosity bo peep at this.
Most of my life from about age 17 I have undertaken hearing checks regularly. Initially as a young man, rather than due to any intrinsic awareness, on a mandatory basis to qualify for entry into various positions prerequisite for occupations I've wanted to hold, and later at least annually as part of a qualifying medical requirement to hold a licence to practice my occupation. In the early years, the nature of the job exposed me to high levels of noise exposure, and for prolonged periods. Although in those days I wore closed headset offering some protection either defacto due the flight helmet, and later Dave Clark style fully enclosed headsets until moving to pointy end types with fans and their noise down the back or out on swept back wing pylons. [br][br]Failure to pass the medical requirement due to hearing damage meant loss of licence privileges and ultimately loss of a job/career I loved with a passion, so I've always been cognizant of self-responsibilty to take reasonable precaution to prevent hearing loss along with other health factors. Later in life (>60), the medical validity period reduced to a stringent 6 months with additional checks, so the test requirement became a 6 monthly routine. Since retiring I've undertaken less stringent but approximately annual hearing test/checks for my own edification.
[u]Now an anecdote[/u]. Like many here I suspect, I've enjoyed playing online PC games at one time or another (how I wished now I'd taken up guitar instead, but no point in regret over things passed which can't be altered). I was one of three admins on several popular FPS servers we founded two decades ago. One of the other admins, around my same age (edit: mid 40s for clarification) was even then as deaf as a post figuratively, literally without his hearing aid. His career? He'd been a pro roadie for the 30 years prior for heavy rock bands. o.O !!!
Take the test.
