Noise cancelling headphones and tinnitus

Does anyone here use Noise cancelling headphones that also suffer from tinnitus?

Although a few sites online seem to recommend them, I find on the handful of times I've tried them it's made my ears scream louder afterwards. (They are AKG N60NC)

My opinion, not scientific, is that surely in order to cancel out unwanted sounds your ears are bombarded with other frequencies equally as harmful.

NC cans are all the rage now. Will it see an accelerated increase in hearing loss for a new generation?

 

The noise cancellation signal doesn't double the pressure on the ear. It truly cancels it.

What is your experience with non noise cancelling headphones?

 

My wife has moderate to severe tinnitus and uses Bose NC headphones when we attend movies or live concerts and shows. She also wears them when traveling in an airplane. If the noise is going to be extreme (amplified music, say), she wears earplugs under the NC phones. She reports that NC headphones worn during noise exposure reduce the tinnitus she experiences later.

I think we will see an increase in hearing loss for younger people, but not because of NC headphones -- more likely, because they don't use same and turn up earbuds when listening in noisy places. Another culprit (at least in the US) is the aerobics or spin instructor who turns music to 100 dB to energize participants.

P.S. I use Sony NC cans when flying. That lets me listen to music at low levels without interference and reduces my stress level considerably. So while I don't suffer from tinnitus, I do think they are worthwhile in such settings. When I use them at the gym, I am often surprised at how much background noise (mechanical hums and idiotic piped music) we accept each day and don't notice until it's gone.

 

I have been using the Sennheiser Momentum 2 Bluetooth. I use them every day at work and international flights (10 hours) they are on 100% of the time. My tinnitus is at a level of 35db of music to overcome the ringing. This was incurred from a broken eardrum (impact accident) 40 years ago. Love them but I’m sure there are better NC headphones available now.

 

I believe my Bose Soundsport ear buds have caused my tinnitus to get worse. I never had bad rigging in ears until my wife purchased these for me last Christmas. They sound great and are not played too loud, I just use them maybe too much?

 

Tinnitus can get worse over time without using earbuds, too. So we should be careful about making an earbud/tinnitus association.

 

I have quite bad tinnitus and I use the Boss noise cancelling headphones for flying. They are a gawdsend for getting through a flight! I have found the noisecancelling aspect has no detrimental effect on my tinnitus, only good effects insofar as they cancel steady tone noise very well.

There's no reason the noise cancelling technology itself should exacerbate tinnitus.

 

I have long standing tinnitus and have three closed back headphones with active NC (Bose QC15, SonyZX770BN, Bowers and Wilkins PX). Loud music of any sort will aggravate the tinnitus, so I find the NC helps by allowing me to drop the listening volume when the ambient noise level is very high. Train and plane journeys are good examples. I sometimes wear them with no music playing just to block noise out. I don’t think they aggravate the tinnitus as such and think overall they help it. Clearly, while the NC is on and the background noise is reduced you may become more aware of your tinnitus.

 

NC headphones can be a godsend for people with tinnitus. Bose makes the most effective noise cancellers by a good margin, but they aren't the best sounding.

I highly recommend them for relief on your ears. The thing that a lot of people don't understand though is that these only cancel constant noises. They don't cancel dynamic sounds well at all. So these work great for lowering noise inside of an airplane, and with other similarly constant noises. But if you are in a more dynamic environment, then earmuffs may work better.

 

When we use headphones, it is more likely that one turns up the volume higher than when listening in a living room. This, or any artificial listening or musical performance, gives the fatigue "ringing". It is easy to turn up the volume, because then we can get to the "sweet spot" in the loudness curve, where things sound right as we enjoy music at performance levels, without external cues or reference to remind us that speakers at that same level would disturb your neighbors.

Long term exposure to high level sounds is what causes lasting effects. Post-concert ringing is instead fatigue and exhaustion of the chemical pathways for electrical current generation. A similar phenomenon is the spots in your vision after you've looked into the sun or bright lights - they can be experienced as both dark and bright spots.

The cochlea, the snail-like fluid-filled mechanism in your ear, where minute hairs pick up vibrations, when stretched out, is a long horn resonator. The opening is where the highest frequencies are perceived, and by the end, all but low frequencies are filtered or tuned out.

Therefore, this construction leaves the high frequency receptors most vulnerable to lifetime exposure damage from any frequency of sound. My hypothesis is that tinnitus is the damaged high frequency receptors and their associated chemical and nerve pathways instead permanently generating the false signal output of ringing. Our brain fortunately can filter it until we give it attention, like the noise of your computer or traffic out the window right now.

Best is in-ear monitors, with earplug-like tips that you roll up and insert. You get the benefit of physical sound attenuation of external sounds to go along with your reasonable volume selection. No electronics doing "cancellation" by adding their own sound.

 

My Sony WH-1000XM3 has a more effective noise canceling system than my Bose QC35-II.

I use the Sony to play drums. They do a very good job canceling very dynamic sounds like a snare or a cymbal hit. Of course I can still hear them but very low. Haven't tried earmuffs.

 

Love this post. But I don't 100% agree with the first sentence. One of the benefits of noise cancelling or noise isolating headphones is that you don't have to compete with ambient noise. So, folks will tend to bombard their ears with less total sound. Out in public is a different story. There, folks blast headphone music way louder than they would if they were trying to crank a boom box on a train, or at the gym, for example.

 

Exactly. One of the greatest benefits to NC headphones is that they allow you to listen at much lower volumes and yet still be able to hear your music. I will sometimes wear mine in a loud room while playing nothing just to cut down on my overall noise exposure.

 

I dont like any form of headphones or earbuds, they all make my tinnitus flare up later. I never wear them anymore unless I have to.

 

Interesting. I may have to check these out. How do these sound with music?

 

They sound good enough to me that I don’t really feel like I’m making any kind of compromise when using them.

 

That is more or less how it works.

I don't believe in the concept and go another way. I use ear protection muffs like construction workers use when operating a jackhammer and I stick my Koss PortaPro headphones in there. It instantly cuts next to all noise and it's eerily like watching a movie when you're wearing these. Listening to Chopin while riding the noisy subway is now possible while easily hearing every nuance.

They look ridiculous but are cheap, available in all hardware stores, and make a huge positive impact. As a bonus, I can lower the volume by about 20-30%, therefore saving my ears from additional abuse. Highly recommended if you don't mind looking like a dork in the process.

 

High quality

 

Listening to speakers at the same volume doesn't?

 

No, for some reason.

I do wear ear plugs for loud sound, as in band practice or a gig.

But headphones bother me at any volume.

 

So do proper IEM's when used with good tips that fill up your ears! No need for NC headphones. I use IEM's when working with loud gardening machines (chainsaws etc.), when cycling, ..... On our last trip to a very noisy Florence, they saved my nights as I just plugged them in my ears at night to block sound from the outside city, giving me the opportunity to sleep, even on my side (which is not possible with NC headphones).

 

I've had tinnitus in my right ear for more than 30 years. It has been getting progressively worse over time, which is typical for tinnitus.

I use Bose noise-cancelling earphones when flying. I listen both to music as well as downloaded video content. It is much easier to hear with the noise-cancelling on, and I haven't noticed any increase in tinnitus as a result.

 

I suspect that all of the auditory-health opining in this thread on a potential link between noise-cancellation headphones and increased tinnitus is complete fact-free Internet bunk. At least the OP is honest that his speculation about causes and effects is unscientific and based on nothing.

It’s extremely difficult to find any credible information addressing this conspiracy theory, which has been raised many times before on the web. I just tried. Search results are flooded with clickbait junk and unreliable exchanges of subjective chatter like we’re seeing in this thread, leading nowhere solid. I looked at a bunch of online efforts to address questions about NC headphones affecting tinnitus, in places like Reddit and various health sites, and they all went around in circles or slathered thick layers of hearsay and unsourced claims and guesswork instead of well-sourced fact. If someone else has better luck I’d love to hear about it.

Obviously there’s nothing wrong with people sharing their opinions and experiences with tinnitus (I’ve got it too) and headphones, but don’t expect to get any reliable clarification on this probably imaginary danger by asking random forum schlubs like you and me.

 

IEM? I'm not sure what that means. Are you referring to those custom-made molded to your ears earplugs?

I would not recommend NC headphones for use with a chainsaw. You need more serious hearing protection than these offer for that usage. And they clearly are not useful when riding a bike.

The problem that I find with any sort of earplug is that they always make your breathing and other internal body noises louder. Earplugs also make it rather difficult to judge the proper volume levels to speak-at while wearing them too. NC headphones are much better in these regards.

 

In Ear Monitors like shure 256 to name one. If you are lucky with your ears you don't even need custom molded ear plugs as these come standard with plugs in several sizes and in several materials (the standard foam plugs work best in sealing off your ears). Musicians use them as (in ear) monitors when performing on stage. But they also work really great blocking outside noise (good fitting IEM's are NOT to be confused with those nasty ipod earbuds or whatever).