LOUDEST Concert and Tinnitus

In my younger days, I came home from many a concert with my ears ringing, sometimes for a couple of days.  But the concert that hurt the most was a local three piece band. Guitar, keyboards and drums. The venue was the upstairs of a bar. They weren’t particularly loud, but something in their PA setup had me out the door in less than a half hour, but the damage was done! I’ve had issues with my right ear ever since.

Mine was Neil Young, at the United Palace in NYC, with my son.  We both had ringing ears for three or more days.  

the Stones, Grateful Dead had very good sound systems. top notch. the best naturally. it was so clean it did not hurt while it was damaging your hearing. the security staff would always provide me with plugs. hearing today has suffered tremendously. but i attended over 1000 shows. was in and around the biz so on a lot of guest list

I don’t what was the loudest concert (maybe The WHO, Vancouver, 80’s) but we saw Eric Church and Dave Matthews in Tahoe last summer, same venue. SPL meter on my phone. Eric Church - excellent sound, did not need the ear plugs. Dave’s sound sucked and it was too loud - didn’t stay for the whole show.

I do know the exact moment my tinnitus started - outdoor rave in London - late 90’s. Got too close to a wall of JBLs. So call it 25 years.

It is very prominent but stable. Roughly 50dB loss 750-4kHz both ears. I use an app called rain rain at night - it needs to be loud to drown it out.

Tinnitus can be really serious though - I have a close friend that got it recently from anti-depressant meds - a known risk - he was considering suicide - he has a wife and 2 little kids. Fortunately his mother knew I have tinnitus and she told him to call me. I talked to him for a long time - talked him of the ledge. He’s coping. Sound generator app and hearing aids.

I’m not ready for hearing aids yet but the theory is they can be programmed to amplify the attenuated frequencies which makes the ringing less prominent - some also have white noise - but there is no cure and none of the OTC stuff that claims to help works for me.

1994 Aerosmith concert in Budapest. Until next morning I could not hear people talk only when they shouted at top of their lungs. Ears ringing for three days afterwards.

Loudest noise ever: Airplane taxiing at Petrolina airport in Brasil (1989), I was on the balcony watching it, and as it turned it faced me and I was exposed to the jet engines noise for a split second. It felt like the world exploded, I could not hear anything for a while afterwards. Took about a month until hearing returned to normal. That was about 160dB....

Using ear protection regularly: when going to concerts, movies, while driving at also at work! Even though I work in a lab / office, the AC in big buildings is loud enough to warrant noise protection.

Also, I have avoided gear that cause fatigue like Justinian's plague...  (not just any plague, but the granddady of all plagues.)

My hearing is fine out to 20kHz, and I'm 45. Also, it's quite a bit more trained when I was 20 - I hear much more than I did when I was younger. (When younger, I was not aware that I can hear any higher than 17kHz! It took training to identify what the super highs sound like.)

Four critical factors were there to prevent harin decline, and instead have improvement:

1. Protect from loud occasional music, and when exposed, TAKE VITAMIN C afterwards. Your ears will recover from most damage, but they need the fuel to do that. No fuel, damage is permanent. Vitamin C available - no oxidative damage to neurons.

2. Even more important: protect from repetitive constant noise. Hours and hours of 70-80dB noise exposure is just as bad, or even worse than occasional 110+dB.

3. Crucial: if you notice fatigue from stereo, it is your brain telling you to immediately stop, Also, you need to change your system to non-fatiguing. Me and my friends have experienced hat fatiguing stereo is the winner among all kinds of noise exposures to spectacularly your hearing prematurely.

Good luck, and happy concerts! ;

PS: The Die Antwort concert in Honolulu (about 2018?) was freakin loud as well... my most recent exposure to crazy levels of sound. Was totally worth it though.... lovely band!