Pump Up The Volume (on S60 3rd Edition)!

I'm beginning to wonder if the EU have a point, maybe most people ARE frying their ears by having their headphone volume too loud.

I've never found S60 volume to be too low, in fact I normally listen on the lowest setting of 10% believe it or not. Maybe it's because I don't use headphones that much, just on long journeys, so my ears aren't as worn away as those of people who use them every day.

Or maybe I'm just weird. 😊

And go deaf...

By the way All About Symbian accept no responsibility if you do choose to make yourself deaf.

I hate this "parental" EU stuff. (and unfortunately its not only the case of the loudnes of the headphones 😞)

Hey, guys, I was joking about the 'deaf' bit, you know. We don't want eardrum-blasting volume, we only want something loud enough to hear above the bustle of traffic.... Usual common sense applies!

Steve

The thing is that listening to music in a noisy street or airplane without any kind of noise canceling earphones is just foolish. And you can see it (well, hear it) by yourslef by doing this small experiment:

- During the day, grab your walkman (traditional walkman, MP3 player, MP3 phone, whatever you use to listen to music on the go) and go for a walk in a very noisy street. Start listening to your favourite album at the volume you'd usually use when walking in the street. Walk in that street for at least 10 minutes, increasing the volume if necessary until you reach a volume that's loud enough for comfortable listening. Do not cheat. Do not set the volume intentionally lower than what you'd usually set it to. After 10 minutes, write down the volume at which you're listening your music.

- At night, just before going to bed, when everything is silent outside, switch off your sereo/radio/TV/flatmate/wife or anything that makes noise in your house then let 10 minutes to your ears to rest and get used to the silence. You can brush your teeth in the meantime. Then put your earphones on and start listening to the same songs your were listening in the street earlier at the same volume. I can promize you that you will be horrified by how loud this is and will wonder how you haven't already gone deaf by now. Yet, it's the same volume that you used during the day and, at the time, you genuinely thought that it was a perfectly reasonable volume.

So these EU rules might sounds silly and they probably are since they just piss off people and don't make them realize what the problem is. But rather than publishing tricks to get louder sound, it would maybe be more sensible to explain and demonstrate what the problem is and provide real solutions (reviews of noise canceling earphones). I'm glad though that Steve did mention noise canceling earphones in his article. I just wish the article would have put the emphasis on that rather than on the equalizer trick (which *can* be useful in the case of songs much quieter than usual but really should not be used in general).

slitchfield wrote:Steve Litchfield explains how to beat the EU ban on high volumes from headphones ...

Without wishing to defend ridiculously high volume levels on headphones, I think there's plenty of middle ground. When I go to a concert, I come out with ears ringing for hours afterwards. It's rare to get the same physical after effects with headphones.

All a matter of degree, as with most things. I still think Nokia erred too far on the side of safety with their recent smartphone audio mods, which is why I was keen to write up the Equaliser thing....

Steve

This is a great tip.

I noticed after upgrading my E61's firmware recently that the volume on the speaker just wasn't the same. Sometimes I listen to podcasts in the car while driving and despite having the volume cranked up to max, it just isn't enough. Now I have a new EQ preset called "Podcast" which boosts the volume considerably.

Thanks for this!

"When I go to a concert, I come out with ears ringing for hours afterwards."

I think the worry might be though that people tend not to go to concerts every day of the year, but they might well use their iPods every day for many years or many decades.

The main thing missing here is public education, a lot of people just don't realise the damage they can do, so it's an uninformed risk rather than an informed one. If people are educated enough to identify and avoid a risk, there would be no need for laws to protect them from that risk, they'd keep the volume down themselves if they're worried about the risk.

Maybe kids and adults should be taught to take care of their ears the same way they're taught to take care of their teeth. They could be taught about noise reduction the same way they're taught about flossing and toothpaste. There's no law to force someone to brush their teeth, but I think everyone knows what happens if they don't, so a lot of people do. Those that don't usually just accept that it's their own fault if their teeth fall out.

If everyone knew the risks of earphones, a lot of people would look into using noise reduction instead of just thinking all earphones are the same. Earphone manufacturers would emphasise the safety of their equipment as one of the selling points.

Still I don't like the idea of not being in charge of my life (at least in some factor). It's my decision to listen as loud as I prefer and it is only my problem and my responsibility of getting deaf. Of course information is very important. So why not make an option in the player that one can turn off (safe volume/ unsafe volume) and let the user decide?

It looks like it is the same hypocrisy as with cigarettes warnings. Now everybody thinks that only smoking cause lung cancer and if they don't smoke and avoid smokers they won't catch a lung or throat cancer, but it is so untrue. Lung cancer is a result of a mutation in cells caused by cancerogenic substances like car fumes, grill smoke, cigarettes and even good old dust and many, many others which are affecting the cells and causing mutations (but still to catch a cancer one need genetic predisposition [e.g. 10% people have predisposition to skin cancer other people can lay dow on the sun and will never cach it, by the way you can check yourself for that mutatin in some genetic institutes]) so why we don't have warning stickers on cars or grill machines? Non smokers are so suprised when they have lung cancer diagnosed. They feel like being cheated.
So I think that accessibility of the information is very important and then one can knowingly decide what to do with it. I'm for informing not for preventing.
But still not knowing is not an excuse and it doesn't turn off the responsability.

"It looks like it is the same hypocrisy as with cigarettes warnings."

It's not quite the same, everyone KNOWS that cigarettes can increase your chances of getting cancer, but very few people know that headphones can cause serious damage to your hearing. That's why I think they should be educating people about it.

"Now everybody thinks that only smoking cause lung cancer and if they don't smoke and avoid smokers they won't catch a lung or throat cancer, but it is so untrue."

Smoking is thought to cause 90% of lung cancer cases in the UK. If you don't smoke, you're MUCH less likely to get lung cancer. By far the best way of avoiding lung cancer is to avoid smoking.

There are other causes, but even if you add them all together they still only account for 10% of lung cancer cases.

If you were playing russian roulette, would you choose to play with a gun that had one bullet, or a gun that had nine bullets?

If you were playing russian roulette, would you choose to play with a gun that had one bullet, or a gun that had nine bullets?

Get The Taste Of The Actual Volume On Nokia E61

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