Yeah, it is a bit more fatiguing on your ears but not inherently more dangerous to them, what is important is to listen to your body and don’t push it too long for too loud. Your ears need breaks! It is weird but true. Damage doesn’t come from headphones, it comes from not paying attention to your body and not giving your ears the breaks they need.

What I would say is if you are turning up music on your headphones to drown out something else that is loud, that is when you are much more likely to hurt your ears without realizing. Try to get noise cancelling headphones if you find yourself doing that.

It’s a myth that headphones cause more ear damage than speakers.

95dBs measured at the eardrum are 95dBs independently if the source is 10m away or inside your ear canal.

Now most people tend to blast louder on headphones than they do on speakers, I tend to do the opposite, so in my case speakers cause more damage.

If you “just turn it high enough to hear it” then there’s no damage. In fact if you listened to speakers you would have to probably turn it louder to overcome the environment noise than you do on headphones that muffle outside noise.

If you search “OSHA dB chart” you should get a basic idea of how loud is loud, note than ear damage is cumulative, so it’s OK to blast super loud for few minutes a day, on the other hand if you listen to music all day you need to play at lower levels.

Also, listen to your body, if after a listening session you hear tinnitus (ringing in your ears), then it’s too loud. (That doesn’t mean it’s OK just because you don’t hear ringing)

I usually listen around 100dB(A) but I don’t recommend it.

As others have already said: take breaks. It’s really easy (speaking from experience) to “get used” to a volume level that’s way too loud, ESPECIALLY if using isolating or noise-cancelling headphones.

Part of how your brain determines if something is too loud is its contrast with the environment. Yelling at the top of your lungs sounds a lot louder in a quiet library than it does in the middle of a live concert. Taking a break both recalibrates your sense of loudness and gives your ears a rest.

If you can afford decent “reference” or “studio” headphones, you’ll enjoy the same music at MUCH quieter levels than cheaper or lower-quality headphones. They are designed to be used for long periods of time by professional audio engineers and musicians, who are notoriously protective of their hearing and perfectionistic about even the most subtle of sounds.

Although I was a broke college student and couldn’t afford hardly anything they talked about, I learned a ton scrolling through audiophile forums like Head-Fi ( https://www.head-fi.org/forums/ ). Now I’m less broke, but somehow equipment envy and window-shopping just feels more right than spending way too much money on something I probably don’t have the time to enjoy anymore… Such is life.

edit: stupid grammar mistakes

Using headphones is more polite since you’re not forcing it upon others.

Be reasonable

Some songs are best loud, but slide them slightly off your ears when you get to those

Have fun

Like everything in life, most dangers is a matter of quantity.

Listening to music with headphones is a fantastic way to enjoy music, as long as you are reasonable, it is fine to listen to music loud enough to drown out other sounds for periods.

Back in 2022, I got double flat feet, double heel spurs and a bad knee at the same time, walking was agony at the end of the day, so when I had to walk home from the bus stop, I put on some quite loud Sabaton in my headphones, used that to gather strength to move, usually ending up crying hard as I dragged myself up the path to my apartment building.

I still hear ok, sure, I have a bit of bad hearing, but that was something I had found out a decade before.

You won’t go deaf just by listening to music in headphones, they are an important tool in several sectors, especially in music, every live performance artist is wearing in ear monitors these days, they are special headphones that allow the artist to not only hear the other performers and instruments, but also protect their hearing from the extremely loud speakers and crowds at a live event.

Then you have the people working post production, they all wear headphones all day, you have radio DJs, they also wear headphones all day, pilots, air traffic controllers, police, security guards, and similar professions also often wear head phones constantly.

What you are being told about headphones is just fearmongering, but built on a small kernel of truth, loud sounds can and will damage your ears, but that goes for all loud noise, not just headphones.

I love headphones. I have quite a few very good pairs. And headphone amps. And portable headphone amps. Ive been in the hobby for about 10 years now, maybe a bit more. My hearing is still excellent (according to hearing tests I’ve had). Aside from my tinnitus, which ive had since I was a kid. Just be mindful of the volume levels.

Mom’s sorta right, but also not… If you blast the headphones, yeah, of course it’ll eventually screw your hearing. If you leave them at a level, where you’re able to hear the outside world around you, you’l be fine.

Headphones won’t break your ears any worse than loud speakers do, and noise cancelling headphones are actually a solution to blocking loud noise (e.g. construction), or for people who get overstimulated.

In fact, since headphones can block out sound you might even be listening at a lower volume than if you were trying to drown out sound with speakers, assuming the headphones have any noise cancellation (even just muffled cups). Even just competing with ambient noise can cause us to raise volumes more than necessary.

If you have to use headphones, use soundcancelling like AirPods Pro or whatever else that has noise-canxelling and set your phone to use headphone safety where it reduces the maximum volume to as much as it can

🤨

All I get is ears full of earwax.

Fear mongering. Definitely.

Headphones vs speakers is way less significant than listening volume. The big thing to be careful of is listening with just one earbud in. When we do this we almost always end up turning the volume in that one too high, because you need on average 6db more volume to compensate for the audio input of the other ear.