Re: [AUDITORY] How to speak to people about hearing loss and high sound pressure levels (Virginie van Wassenhove )


Subject: Re: [AUDITORY] How to speak to people about hearing loss and high sound pressure levels
From:    Virginie van Wassenhove  <virginie.van-wassenhove@xxxxxxxx>
Date:    Mon, 14 Oct 2013 06:13:01 +0200
List-Archive:<http://lists.mcgill.ca/scripts/wa.exe?LIST=AUDITORY>

--_000_eacfebea22014b4c907a315add76b3f4EXCAHB2intraceafr_ Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Dear Kevin, This is indeed a very good question. I don't know the legislation where you are, but most European countries hav= e one for sound levels in public environments. However, most of the time it= is completely unrelated to the limits imposed on workplaces, and has actua= lly little to do with health and safety at all. For instance, in France, th= e level is limited to 105 dB-A (Leq for 15 min, 120 dB-SPL peak). No doubt = that there's enough in this to induce hearing loss. The crazy thing in all this is that these loud public event generally don't= run themselves by themselves, and the public is generally not left on its = own. There is a lot of staff, and while some of them can wear ear plugs, a = fair number of them can't because they must hear orders from customers, or = because they have the hand on the volume knob and are supposed to check wha= t's going on sound-wise... I used to teach to these guys, sound technicians/engineers, a short introdu= ction to hearing. What I remember is that there's a lot of myth and legend = in the field: they know next to nothing about how to preserve their ear eve= n though this is their primary professional tool (deaf sound engineers don'= t have the best reputation). Backstage, they hear things like "ears are lik= e a muscle, you need to train them: the louder the sound, the stronger your= ears become". Actually once you've killed that myth (by playing simulation= s of hearing loss, cochlear-implant, tinnitus, hyperacusis...), they get pr= etty concerned. And with the concern for their own health, you may expect t= hat they would be more concerned about the public's health. Now, only when this knowledge is ubiquitous in the profession will the tech= guys have the guts to tell the producer/employer that they shouldn't do it= . In the meantime the only thing that can bend these people, is the prospec= t of getting brought to court for rendering someone deaf. And actually it already happened. I only know of examples in France, but it= must have happened in America too. In France they talk about a concert of = Ben Harper in Grenoble (29 March 2000) where 6 people in the audience ended= up in hospital for ear damage, and one of them attacked the organizers in = court (I added a bit more details about in the PS). I haven't been able to = check more, but the legend says he won, and the whole benefice from the con= cert went in the payment of compensations for that person. Since, concerts = are apparently limited at 95 dB-A in Grenoble. People don't seem to have no= ticed, but nobody was sent again to the hospital. Another example: U2, Mars= eille July 1993, same story. I'm sure there's enough material to scare the = organizers out of doing the stupid thing. So I think the right discourse is to stress that keeping levels low is not = about making the old neighbours less cranky, it's not about being nice... i= t's about health and safety, about preserving your professional tools (be t= hey employee or your own ears) and about running your business in a sustain= able way. The last straw is that the only argument against turning down the= level is that "people won't enjoy is as much". But while there's actually = no proof of that at all, there quite a large literature on NIHL... (more on= that in the PPS) -Etienne PS: More about the case in Grenoble. Again this is what I've heard from sou= nd engineers. These big concerts use directional systems (line array, or ph= ased array, or "system V-DOSC"). The common problem that sound engineers fa= ce is that there's a large crowd, and sound needs to travel and gets attenu= ated while doing so. With a directional system, you can try to have a more = homogenous sound level in the audience: you jack up the higher beams to rea= ch afar, but keep the lower beams relatively softer to avoid deafening (ins= tantly) the audience close to the stage. Nice on paper, but if you mistune = the system (which may apparently have been the case in Grenoble), you may d= o worse than good. And even worse, if you don't have that system but are us= ed to it, you may forget that you should not have 95 dB at the console at t= he back of the audience... PPS: Regarding how enjoyable loud music is, I think there is quite a large = source of evidence that loudness can be subjective and context dependent. A= ctually this is a trick that experienced sound engineers sometime use: when= a musician thinks is not loud enough, for instance, the right thing to do = is to lower his level, then when he/she's unhappy, put it back to where it = was... that generally makes one happy musician... -- Etienne Gaudrain, PhD UMCG, Afdeling KNO BB20 PO Box 30.001 9700 RB Groningen Netherlands Room P3.236 Phone +31 5036 13290 Skype egaudrain Note: emails to this address are limited to 10 MB. To send larger attachmen= ts, please use egaudrain.cam@xxxxxxxx<mailto:egaudrain.cam@xxxxxxxx>. On 13 October 2013 07:09, Kevin Austin <kevin.austin@xxxxxxxx<mailto:ke= vin.austin@xxxxxxxx>> wrote: An on-going topic -- very high level [dB] sounds, hearing loss, personal an= d societal responsibility. Once or twice a year I am invited and go to an event where the sustained so= und pressure [dB] levels will be in excess of 95dB, and often into the 105 = - 110+ dB range. I am usually long gone before the levels have drifted up t= o this point, however they usually start in the 85-90dB range. I use a comb= ination of Vaseline [petroleum jelly], and water- [spit-] soaked paper tiss= ues / Kleenex, to seal my ear canals. At the last two events I left, about = 20% of the people were babies or children under 7-9. They were brought clos= e to the speaker stacks, and the younger children enjoyed playing in front = of the speakers. My question is not one about NIHL etc, which is documented, but rather one = of how to speak to the people responsible, before and/or after the event ab= out the damage that is being caused by these environments. If this were a w= ork place, there would be laws, rules, regulations and ways of changing the= behavior. In these social environments, rules and regulations don't apply.= And I'm talking 3 or more hours of continuous 105+dB. There are currently two students in our university electroacoustic studies = program who have reported their hearing condition to me in some detail, alo= ng with audiograms, and possible hyperacusis. Discussing this with many you= nger people tends towards the "teenage invincibility syndrome" [will never = happen to me], and in older people, there is a general ignorance or lack of= understanding, often paired with an attitude that indicates, "if it really= is a problem, there would be laws about it". There are. But, in my experie= nce, there is a fundamental ignorance of what happens, and what has been ha= ppening for the past 35 - 40 years. As the professionals in the field, what can be done? and how can it be done= ? Is it a matter of this "silent plague", simply eating up the hearing of t= hose who are under 40 such that they will not be able to hear in 15 - 25 ye= ars. Recently, this appeared: Thu, 09/12/2013 >> Blake Wilson, Graeme Clark, and Ingeborg Hochmair were awarded the Laske= r Award this week for their contributions to the development of the cochlea= r implant. The Lasker Award is essentially the American Nobel prize, and t= his is an incredible recognition of not only the importance of cochlear imp= lant technology but also a much broader acknowledgment of the importance of= hearing and communication by the entire scientific community. There will b= e several events over the next few months building on this recognition with= interviews with the Lasker awardees, a dedicated one-hour show on PBS with= Charlie Rose and Eric Kandel on hearing, and finally a two-day workshop sp= onsored by the Institute of Medicine on hearing loss in older adults in Jan= uary. It is noted that this seems to be mostly about cochlea-based hearing loss i= n older adults. Other items on stem cell research growing back hair cells have been seen in= the media. However, these reports do not address a major cause of the prob= lem, exposure to high dB levels. As I understand it, this developing techno= logy may have little effect on tinnitus caused by nerve damage. Are there ways to have the media take cognizance of and report on the dange= rous environments which persist? As professionals, is there any individual or group responsibility regarding= making this better known and the [likely] consequences more clearly unders= tood? Is this like the cigarette situation where the 'evil' is not only soc= ially acceptable, but expected so that the event has 'street cred'? Club ow= ners and Rave organizers want blood-letting levels, "because the customers = want it". Kevin --_000_eacfebea22014b4c907a315add76b3f4EXCAHB2intraceafr_ Content-Type: text/html; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-ID: <9F095B151EDBE34C91462892884A4079@xxxxxxxx> Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable <html> <head> <meta http-equiv=3D"Content-Type" content=3D"text/html; charset=3Diso-8859-= 1"> </head> <body> <div dir=3D"ltr">Dear Kevin, <div><br> </div> <div>This is indeed a very good question.</div> <div><br> </div> <div>I don't know the legislation where you are, but most European countrie= s have one for sound levels in public environments. However, most of the ti= me it is completely unrelated to the limits imposed on workplaces, and has = actually little to do with health and safety at all. For instance, in France, the level is limited to 105 dB= -A (Leq for 15 min, 120 dB-SPL peak). No doubt that there's enough in this = to induce hearing loss.</div> <div><br> </div> <div>The crazy thing in all this is that these loud public event generally = don't run themselves by themselves, and the public is generally not left on= its own. There is a lot of staff, and while some of them can wear ear plug= s, a fair number of them can't because they must hear orders from customers, or because they have the hand on the= volume knob and are supposed to check what's going on sound-wise...</div> <div><br> </div> <div>I used to teach to these guys, sound technicians/engineers, a short in= troduction to hearing. What I remember is that there's a lot of myth and le= gend in the field: they know next to nothing about how to preserve their ea= r even though this is their primary professional tool (deaf sound engineers don't have the best reputation). B= ackstage, they hear things like &quot;ears are like a muscle, you need to t= rain them: the louder the sound, the stronger your ears become&quot;. Actua= lly once you've killed that myth (by playing simulations of hearing loss, cochlear-implant, tinnitus, hyperacusis...), = they get pretty concerned. And with the concern for their own health, you m= ay expect that they would be more concerned about the public's health.</div= > <div><br> </div> <div>Now, only when this knowledge is ubiquitous in the profession will the= tech guys have the guts to tell the producer/employer that they shouldn't = do it. In the meantime the only thing that can bend these people, is the pr= ospect of getting brought to court for rendering someone deaf.</div> <div><br> </div> <div>And actually it already happened. I only know of examples in France, b= ut it must have happened in America too. In France they talk about a concer= t of Ben Harper in Grenoble (29 March 2000) where 6 people in the audience = ended up in hospital for ear damage, and one of them attacked the organizers in court (I added a bit more detai= ls about in the PS). I haven't been able to check more, but the legend says= he won, and the whole benefice from the concert went in the payment of com= pensations for that person. Since, concerts are apparently limited at 95 dB-A in Grenoble. People don't seem = to have noticed, but nobody was sent again to the hospital. Another example= : U2, Marseille July 1993, same story. I'm sure there's enough material to = scare the organizers out of doing the stupid thing.</div> <div><br> </div> <div>So I think the right discourse is to stress that keeping levels low is= not about making the old neighbours less cranky, it's not about being nice= ... it's about health and safety, about preserving your professional tools = (be they employee or your own ears) and about running your business in a sustainable way. The last straw is th= at the only argument against turning down the level is that &quot;people wo= n't enjoy is as much&quot;. But while there's actually no proof of that at = all, there quite a large literature on NIHL... (more on that in the PPS)</div> <div><br> </div> <div><br> </div> <div>-Etienne</div> <div><br> </div> <div><br> </div> <div>PS: More about the case in Grenoble. Again this is what I've heard fro= m sound engineers. These big concerts use directional systems (line array, = or phased array, or &quot;system V-DOSC&quot;). The common problem that sou= nd engineers face is that there's a large crowd, and sound needs to travel and gets attenuated while doing so. With = a directional system, you can try to have a more homogenous sound level in = the audience: you jack up the higher beams to reach afar, but keep the lowe= r beams relatively softer to avoid deafening (instantly) the audience close to the stage. Nice on paper, but = if you mistune the system (which may apparently have been the case in Greno= ble), you may do worse than good. And even worse, if you don't have that sy= stem but are used to it, you may forget that you should not have 95 dB at the console at the back of the au= dience...</div> <div><br> </div> <div>PPS: Regarding how enjoyable loud music is, I think there is quite a l= arge source of evidence that loudness can be subjective and context depende= nt. Actually this is a trick that experienced sound engineers sometime use:= when a musician thinks is not loud enough, for instance, the right thing to do is to lower his level, then wh= en he/she's unhappy, put it back to where it was... that generally makes on= e happy musician...</div> <div><br> </div> <div> <pre class=3D"" cols=3D"72">--=20 Etienne Gaudrain, PhD UMCG, Afdeling KNO BB20 PO Box 30.001 9700 RB Groningen Netherlands Room P3.236 Phone &#43;31 5036 13290 Skype egaudrain Note: emails to this address are limited to 10 MB. To send larger attachmen= ts, please use <a href=3D"mailto:egaudrain.cam@xxxxxxxx">egaudrain.cam@xxxxxxxx= il.com</a>.</pre> </div> <div><br> </div> </div> <div class=3D"gmail_extra"><br> <br> <div class=3D"gmail_quote">On 13 October 2013 07:09, Kevin Austin <span dir= =3D"ltr">&lt;<a href=3D"mailto:kevin.austin@xxxxxxxx" target=3D"_blank"= >kevin.austin@xxxxxxxx</a>&gt;</span> wrote:<br> <blockquote class=3D"gmail_quote" style=3D"margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1p= x #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"> An on-going topic -- very high level [dB] sounds, hearing loss, personal an= d societal responsibility.<br> <br> Once or twice a year I am invited and go to an event where the sustained so= und pressure [dB] levels will be in excess of 95dB, and often into the 105 = - 110&#43; dB range. I am usually long gone before the levels have drifted = up to this point, however they usually start in the 85-90dB range. I use a combination of Vaseline [petroleum jel= ly], and water- [spit-] soaked paper tissues / Kleenex, to seal my ear cana= ls. At the last two events I left, about 20% of the people were babies or c= hildren under 7-9. They were brought close to the speaker stacks, and the younger children enjoyed playing in f= ront of the speakers.<br> <br> My question is not one about NIHL etc, which is documented, but rather one = of how to speak to the people responsible, before and/or after the event ab= out the damage that is being caused by these environments. If this were a w= ork place, there would be laws, rules, regulations and ways of changing the behavior. In these social envi= ronments, rules and regulations don't apply. And I'm talking 3 or more hour= s of continuous 105&#43;dB.<br> <br> There are currently two students in our university electroacoustic studies = program who have reported their hearing condition to me in some detail, alo= ng with audiograms, and possible hyperacusis. Discussing this with many you= nger people tends towards the &quot;teenage invincibility syndrome&quot; [will never happen to me], and in older peopl= e, there is a general ignorance or lack of understanding, often paired with= an attitude that indicates, &quot;if it really is a problem, there would b= e laws about it&quot;. There are. But, in my experience, there is a fundamental ignorance of what happens, and what has been happen= ing for the past 35 - 40 years.<br> <br> As the professionals in the field, what can be done? and how can it be done= ? Is it a matter of this &quot;silent plague&quot;, simply eating up the he= aring of those who are under 40 such that they will not be able to hear in = 15 - 25 years.<br> <br> Recently, this appeared:<br> <br> Thu, 09/12/2013<br> &gt;&gt; Blake Wilson, Graeme Clark, and Ingeborg Hochmair were awarded the= Lasker Award this week for their contributions to the development of the c= ochlear implant. The Lasker Award is essentially the American Nobel prize, = and &nbsp;this is an incredible recognition of not only the importance of cochlear implant technology but also a much = broader acknowledgment of the importance of hearing and communication by th= e entire scientific community. There will be several events over the next f= ew months building on this recognition with interviews with the Lasker awardees, a dedicated one-hour show on PBS= with Charlie Rose and Eric Kandel on hearing, and finally a two-day worksh= op sponsored by the Institute of Medicine on hearing loss in older adults i= n January.<br> <br> It is noted that this seems to be mostly about cochlea-based hearing loss i= n older adults.<br> <br> <br> Other items on stem cell research growing back hair cells have been seen in= the media. However, these reports do not address a major cause of the prob= lem, exposure to high dB levels. As I understand it, this developing techno= logy may have little effect on tinnitus caused by nerve damage.<br> <br> Are there ways to have the media take cognizance of and report on the dange= rous environments which persist?<br> <br> As professionals, is there any individual or group responsibility regarding= making this better known and the [likely] consequences more clearly unders= tood? Is this like the cigarette situation where the 'evil' is not only soc= ially acceptable, but expected so that the event has 'street cred'? Club owners and Rave organizers want blo= od-letting levels, &quot;because the customers want it&quot;.<br> <span class=3D"HOEnZb"><font color=3D"#888888"><br> <br> Kevin<br> </font></span></blockquote> </div> <br> </div> </body> </html> --_000_eacfebea22014b4c907a315add76b3f4EXCAHB2intraceafr_-- -- Sendmail-Host: pisaure.intra.cea.fr Relay: muguet2.intra.cea.fr [132.166.192.7] Helo: muguet2.intra.cea.fr Envelope-From: virginie.van-wassenhove@xxxxxxxx Queue-Id: r9E4D1Xr010083 Date: Mon, 14 Oct 2013 04:13:01 GMT Envelope-To: virginie.van.wassenhove@xxxxxxxx Fur_rdns: muguet2.intra.cea.fr Fur_helo: muguet2.intra.cea.fr Fur: 132.166.192.7 Direction: Inbound Mapped-Recipients: virginie.van.wassenhove@xxxxxxxx User-Language: fr Virus-Id: SOPHOS_SAVI_ERROR_OLD_VIRUS_DATA Reason: infecte_out Global-ID: 2551420-2 Msg-Info-Size: 0x00000224


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