by Felipe Espinosa

Created on: November 17, 2008   Last Updated: November 21, 2008

Headphones, earphones, speakers or anything else that can make loud noise has a potential to damage your hearing abilities. Does that mean that the potential to hearing-damage is canceled when 'noise-generating devices' are used responsibly? Well, it depends. On one hand, yes, the lower the abuse the lower the risk, however, the quality of the device also has to be considered in the equation (see below).

Sound is, at least, bi-dimensional. Therefore, for a more thorough discussion of what sound quality means, it is pertinent to introduce another important physical characteristic of sound that influences our perception of it. Besides the amplitude (loudness) of sound, we also perceive what is, probably, its most distinctive property: the frequency. Of course, we use headphones to hear music and music is made with both of these physical properties; and good music should have them balanced. In fact music is multidimensional. Talking good music, you may had or not thought about it before, but great pieces of music are colorful. Whether it is classical, jazz or other type of music, masterpieces can be divided in many sub-pieces that vary in rhythm, loudness, combination of frequencies from different sources (melodies), etc.

You may now be thinking: what do all these issues have to do with the matter of this forum? Well, the point is what does listening to 'good' (balanced) music means to the performance of your sense of hearing? Sorry again but, before answering this question, let me make another short stop on how do our hearing sense actually perceives sound. Sound travels as vibrations in the air. When entering the external canal of our ears, this vibrating air hits the eardrums, which in turn, vibrate too. In each ear, this vibration is transferred to the inner ear through small articulated bones of the middle ear. In the inner ear (a labyrinth-like' structure), the vibrating liquid it contains moves tiny filaments (hair-like structures) on sensory neurons that form an inner layer in the hollow of the labyrinth. Finally, it is the movement of the hair-like structures that actually stimulates the sensory neurons that, in turn, send signals to specialized areas in our brain where sound will be processed and, ultimately, perceived.

Be patient, we are close(r). Whether it is music or something else, very loud sounds put a lot of strain on the different parts of your auditory organs (from the eardrums to the sensory neurons) and, probably most of you had experienced

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