Sound Advice for All. (Off Topic)
Hi Everybody,
I reread the post I just posted in response to JBryan's inquiry, and it occurred to me that some might wonder if I've been critically listening for forty years how can I still hear high frequency details such as details of the sound of the rivets in cymbals. Therein lies the advice I wish to give to others, especially young audiophiles.
In 1962 when I was twelve years old I saved up money from my paper route and bought the first firearm I owned alone. It was a fine 20 gague shotgun. The sound of its report bothered me terribly. My father told me to push the bullet end of a couple of live .22 rifle cartridges into my ears. This helped a great deal. By the mid sixties good quality compressible foam ear plug and ear muff noise suppressors were commonly available to me. Ever since then I have used them on a daily or near daily basis.
I always wore ear plugs or muffs (or both) not only when shooting large bore firearms, but also anytime I attended a rock concert or visited a noisy night club or mowed grass or or ran an electric drill (much less a table saw) or rode in a convertible or even used a blender to make frozen daquiris at a party, etc. etc. I still do.
Yes, you have to be rather obsessive to begin and continue for life a habit such as this. Yes, people will sometimes make fun of you, but if you would like to end up being a fifty-five year old who can still hear fine detail of recordings of rivets in cymbals this is not a good way, it might be the only way.
Sincerely,
Don Reid
Sound Advice for All.
Apart from the firearm talk, which just seems to come out frightingly normal, I am on somewhat one the same page. If have a nice simple set of ear plugs that I use when (hammer)drilling and hope not to forget when going to public musical events or badly managed movie-houses.
Sound Advice for All.
Excessive noise over the years causes loss of upper frequency hearing. How? The fine small sensory hairs in the ear are thinned out. Micro-photos show this on studies. Mine, in the right ear, were thinned out, no thanks to the din of the Pratt and Whitney exhaust, when I clocked up a thousand hours on the DC 3 as a copilot, in 1964. Later, sitting in the left hand seat, when I had a command, the exhaust note was mush less, so that the left ear stayed fine. The six monthly medical high frequency hearing test picked this up straight away. Practicing naturapathic medicine, as a hobby, I discovered that these fine hairs will regrow, if one supplements with 500 mgs of acetyl-l-cysteine, (empty stomach before breakfast), for a period of about six months. At age 68 my hearing is again fine, so I can enjoy the full range of live and canned music. This safe, non-toxic amino acid has a multitude of other beneficial health effects, and is available from nutritiondiscounters.com, AST brand, sold as NAC 500.
Sound Advice for All.
by GC 
, south florida, Sunday, March 13, 2005, 21:17 (6984 days ago) @ GC
i always have earplugs,for public transportation(screaming childeren,the parents of,,the pa's on buses are too loud
every thing too loud these days