I would speculate that hearing loss is caused by decible levels alone. The theory of digital compressed music hearing loss is possibly based on the increasing use of portable CD and MP3 players being used with headphones at high listening levels(IMHO).
hearing loss from compressed music
I found this article on n mp3 website about digital compression for sound cusing possible ear damage. This might be enough for me to completly abandone mp3 which i have been using in place of radio for background music. Wht do you think?
http://www.informatik.fh-hamburg.de/%7Ewindle_c/Logologie/MP3-Gefahr/MP3-risk.html
http://www.informatik.fh-hamburg.de/%7Ewindle_c/Logologie/MP3-Gefahr/MP3-risk.html