An article in Forbes explores, Why We Don’t Turn the Volume Down When the Music Gets Louder – by Eva Amsen, July 30, 2019 writing about the overlap of Science and Art.
First, music itself has been gradually getting louder. Researchers in Canada studied a large collection of songs from the past nine decades to see how much the sound intensity of the music itself has changed per decade. They found that a track by one of today’s artists is intrinsically louder than eighties hits, regardless of whether you’ve turned up the volume to eleven.
This increase doesn’t have anything to do with a change in music style over the years, but with the way that the tracks are recorded and edited. According to the study, audio engineering has changed over time, and as a result there are now fewer “quiet spots” within tracks. That means that the overall sound intensity of current music is a bit higher than that of older music. So yes, music has gotten louder over the years.
But this alone does not mean that these tracks are more likely to cause hearing damage. That also depends on how the listener controls the volume on their end. Ideally, you should probably turn the sound down just a bit when you’re listening to a louder song. Whether you do that, though, again depends on a lot of factors, as another recent study showed.
To Read the full article: click here
If you have any difficulties hearing, please give us a call at 727-323-2471 and set up an appointment. We can help you.
Susan E. Terry, Au.D., F-AAA, F-NAP
Doctor of Audiology
Board Certified
P.S. We are here to help if you have any questions about your hearing, feel free to give us a call at 727-323-2471