Aggrivated tinnitus from speakers?

I have more noticeable tinnitus in my left ear vs the right and any bright sounding system will cause me to turn down the volume if my system isn't set right. I recently moved to a new home and just finally got around to using the Audyssey software on my Marantz receiver to "correct" the speakers to my listening space. A vast improvement. I tend to EQ my treble flat and bump the midrange a bit and I never listen to music at high volume for extended periods. Typically I might crank it for a particular song but then dial it back down.

Your setup sounds like it is too heavy on the treble end and the brightness is causing you issues. I would suggest listening to music w/ flat/neutral EQ settings for a while as you address room treatment. Then make adjustments after that. Not sure that you need to run out and start equipment swapping if you haven't fixed the room first and made adjustments to what you have on hand. 

I had a similar experience last year out on the astronomy field. This is a very quit place, but both my telescopes emit a high frequency sound that many can't even hear. I set the telescopes up closer than normal resulting in spending several overnights within the range where these high frequency whines could be clearly heard. It took a week or so for my tinnitus to return to previous levels. 

What does this mean? I'm trying to convey that in my experience it is not the volume of the sound, but rather the frequency and exposure time. Based on my experience I suggest a solution that involves truncating the high frequencies as a test. That could be your EQ or test driving a set a speakers that are less bright.

60 years old here.

Long time Tinnitus sufferer.  However, I can say that I’ve had it for so long that most of the time I “tune it out”………….until I see something like this post topic, OR someone mentions it, then it starts ringing like crazy again until I forget about it.

I can’t say that my music system affects it one way or the other though.  I’ve actually never heard anyone mention this until seeing the topic.

Merry Christmas, from Tomball, Texas

Welcome.

I’m 59 yo and have had tinnitus for 30 years. I’m listening at 85dB peaks 10 feet from my speakers, avg is more like 70dB which is very satisfying and far too loud to talk over if we have company. This is a very safe zone.

I just had an audiogram which confirmed no changes in the past 15 months. However I "feel" like my tinnitus is louder sometimes, and/or a different frequency, sometimes pulsing but just one one side.

I’ve learned to live with it.

As far as I know, there is no way to measure tinnitus so not sure how you came up with 18khz? And audiometers only measure to 8khz anyway.

Anyway, I built my system around my attenuated range of 500hz-4khz. Good midrange from my Harbeth 40.3 XDs and smooth highs. Details in my profile. The key is rich, full, smooth sound, at very safe levels.

Definitely try and warm up your system as others have suggested. I had more issues with harshness on the digital side than analogue initially, but that problem is solved now.

Know that your ears will get over excited and that may also mean increased or variable tinnitus tones, hopefully temporarily, but as long as you are careful with SPLs, you should not be concerned about worsening hearing loss - other than age related.

Hearing aids won’t solve the problem. They may make tinnitus less prominent by amplifying certain frequencies, and some have white noise but they are often oversold for tinnitus.

Lastly, I asked my audiologist about hearing aids and music, and my fear that they will poorly amplify what my speakers put out, and she said some have a music mode that can help PLUS she can drill tiny holes in the membrane that allow more external / unamplified sound through. Not sure I’m ready to drop $6K on that experiment just yet.

In living with tinnitus over ten years, I can understand the frustration and depression when you love listening to music. There is one thing I have learned - if I listen to a combination of tube electronics and electrostatic speakers, most of the time there is no further excitement of the tinnitus. Since tinnitus varies from day to day, there are some days I can't listen to any music at all and I turn it off. Thank goodness that is rare. I have listened to other systems (transistor and/or cone, for example) and within minutes, the tinnitus increases and becomes unbearable. I am not an engineer or an audiologist, but maybe emphasis of brightness or the lack of distortion of the higher notes may be the reason?