I hooked up my trusty old Logitech speakers to see if they still worked. They did, so I booted a game and sheepishly turned the volume way down in fear of annoying my neighbors, immediately remembering why I had these stuffed in a closet for almost 10 years.

Even if I lived in a soundproof house in the middle of nowhere I'd still be self-conscious enough to just use headphones instead sicko-wistful

  • Frank [he/him, he/him]
    ·
    6 months ago

    i would like to remind folks that long term exposure to even comfortable levels of sound can cause cumulative hearing damage! Please be kind to yourself to maximize your chances of being able to rock out when you're 143 and living on the moons of Saturn. I turn my system volume down to ~15 on my headphones.

    Apparently your ears adapt to sound levels the way your eyes adapt to light levels. After like 15-30 minutes you'll get used to relatively low sound levels. More useful on headphones since you can carry them with you.

    And always wear ear plugs at the show! And double up - ear plugs + ear muffs, when using power-tools or firearms! I'm sure we'll have cheap and easy implants that can restore hearing by by-passing the ear entirely at some point but we're not there yet.

    • infuziSporg [e/em/eir]
      ·
      6 months ago

      One thing that gets in the way of adapting to a sound level is traffic.

      If you're walking or biking, the sound of a car going by will completely drown out the 45 dB audio you're playing.

      • Anne_Teefa
        ·
        6 months ago

        Noise cancelling is the best but you have to be more observant walking and biking since it'll be harder to hear surroundings. Anker makes kick ass headphones for cheap with nose cancellation. I don't work for Anker, promise. I got new over ear headphones to replace ones I had for about 2.5 years (and counting, prolly use them for working out or something or maybe just retirement until there's an emergency since they've split open from all my sweat all this time) and buds as well so I don't die trying to enjoy my bike ride during a blistering summer day. Spent 80 on both with a sale but otherwise they can be cheap especially compared to air pods and the like.