It might also be that your ears are less sensitive to fatigue, and/or haven’t been damaged like some of ours.
I’m jealous of some musicians and DJs who play at loud volumes all the time and experience no adverse effects. Or at least that’s what they say. I’d be deaf by now if I 'd be DJ’ing.
I used a pair of Beyer Dynamic DT770 Pro 80 ohms with my Rytm and after a while noticed a continuous warbling tone in one ear this has gone away somewhat through not using headphones exept when absolutly necessary and then keeping the volume low. Maybe the 200ohm versions would have been better or an open back set.
Now I use a pair of tannoy reveal 502’s at about 80-100cm and a pair of Tannoy Little Reds at about 2m, I prefere the Reds even though they lack bass and use the 502 to check the low end.
Thing is as well Ive done quite a lot of DIY and hammer drilling into a wall with out ear protection is asking for trouble may be thats why the right ear suffered more than the left.
Tinnitus is the last warning you get before you’ll f++k up your hearing forever. First warning, for a lot of people, is hyperacusis, which is the stage before tinnitus -but not for everyone.
Time to rest your ears, educate you brain to listen and produce to a lower level - once the hearing is gone, is gone.
since we love music, we should love our ears.
To some people, ginko biloba helps against tinnitus. for me it worked.
good luck - but most of all BE SMART.
Yeah,
I have had eustacian tube dysfunction for years, minor tinnitus but always suffered with fatigue mixing on KRKs and beyer DT770s.
Got a bigger room, now using Focal Alphas at a distance of 1.6m.
I can use them all day, no noticable fatigue whatsoever.
I think it comes down to reducing SPL, in any way, whilst still having good monitoring.
The inverted tweeters might help though somehow
fatigue is one of the reasons why I like mixing ITB. I like having everything with my mixes saved so I can go back and listen through them little by little, tweaking as needed with fresh ears, instead of sitting down and trying to dedicate a long period of time to them, thus getting fatigue. it’s more common for me that levels will creep louder and louder when I’m jamming/working on tunes in hardware; but then I’m seldom directly in front of the speakers. still an issue though, need to be aware of it and keep things under control. I really should look into an SPL meter…
THIS
Another thing: When you are at a concert that is bearably loud. A friend comes up and yells in your ear to get your attention or compete with the ambient SPL. This does more damage than the music, because it’s that much more proximal.
I don’t go to many live gigs, which is why I still have hearing in my fifth decade. Plus I tell all my friends to never do this. And it is one of the rare times they see me angry.
To the OP… I am sorry for your hearing woes. That’s all I can offer, I am afraid.
If you’re worried about tinnitus, stay away from big music festival ! I went to one recently and I’m almost sure I got tinnitus there. If I had to describe it would be gentle white noise, so it’s not that annoying but still silence doesn’t exist anymore. I’m seriously mad, I got earplugs on all the time but the music was just so loud I could feel the bass vibrating the inside of my head in a very unpleasant way (and it was outside of concerts). I know it sounds that I’m exaggerating but the sound level was that nuts (not all the way, mostly late at night), and I’m surprised anyone enjoyed those kind of music level.
Anyway, just a little rant, you’re never too careful with your earing.
Is it even possible to have ‘complete silence’ with our bodies emiting several sounds?
I hear a similar noise when the room is quiet, like gentle white noise wind.
Never thought it could be due to hearing damage…
Hi I have the same and start monitoring with an app SPL Hawkeyes and discover that this sounds are present in the ambience of my place and sometimes it’s stronger. I feel that I’m very sensible to some of this noise resulting in the jet sound at diff levels.
I have ear damage due to extra metal gigs on my youth and later on making party’s so I lost a considerable % in some freqs.
Monitoring with KRK and diferent boards no cans and yes ear fatigue I use earbuds for producing and partying or concerts or using the vacuum cleaner or mixer on the kitchen very intolerant to heavy noises.
You have to be aware an be conscious and protect your ears of the danger of hearing loss.
As a follow-up to my previous post, I went to see an “ear doctor”, and it turned out I had earwax plug from using earbuds. In the end my hearing is still good, except a little loss in the high frequencies from my right ear, but nothing impending my day-to-day life.
BUT, I now have tinnitus, it’s not too bothering for now (a high-pitched sine which fade to some kind of high pitched white noise when it lessen), but I’ll definitely get away from loud music now. And I have a constant reminder to care for my earing, which is not ideal but not too bad either.
Hello Monobear. I was searching the internet for the exact same topic and found your post. I’m curious, are things better now? Did you buy the Focal Alpha monitors? I’m using KRK Rockit 5. Even on the lowest volume it drives my ears crazy.
This may be BS but I feel like large speakers might be better in cases where you want to monitor with lower levels, because the sub frequency roll off tends to be quite steep on most speakers, and big 8-inchers or similar will maintain their flatness down to a lower Hz. This means that you can have the output volume set quite low without losing that visceral impact, whereas with 5-inch monitors you may need to turn them up quite loud to feel the impact of the music. This perhaps mostly applies if you’re all about bass heavy music but I feel like that’s quite predomninant these days.
I have a pair of Presonus Eris E8 XT’s which have silk dome tweeters and are quite nice for their price. They have quite a bit more treble than typical hifi speakers so you can definitely still get fatigued if you’re listening too loud for too long.
I think it’s just a tricky thing to balance with studio monitors, you need to be able to hear that high end very clearly to pick out issues and mix, but being that close to such a flat and loud speaker is potentially risky for your hearing. Most of these monitors have adjustable bass and treble pots on the back, so you could always consider turning the high end down a few dB to make it a bit more pleasant on your ears.
Hey,
No I have Neumann KH80 now. It‘s way better. But I don‘t know if its just the speakers. But they play a role. I have them further away now with no wall behind them, so way more room and less direct ear piercing. Also I checked my blood pressure 
was too high.
I’m sure some one mentioned earlier, but a little EQing and moving the monitors away help me as a helicopter mechanic from Iraq.
My tinnitus acts up, so I got bigger monitors that don’t have to work as hard to produce sound, and I put them a bit away from me.
I also hard shelf low frequencies and roll off high.
It’s still a thing every so often, but it’s manageable.
To give some credit to in-ears: I think they are really useful in a band context. At least for me, ear fatigue is greatly reduced when using IEMs at a comfortable level instead of each person blasting from wedge-type monitor speakers trying to overpower the drum set and each other in order to be able to hear what they are playing.
If I should speculate, my feeling is that a big part of it being less stressful on the ears is that room thing. All those nearfield monitors are too close and are going directly into your ears. By going to “room sound” it becomes less directional, less piecring, maybe less accurate but way more pleasing for the ears and more natural I feel.
Just throwing this out there as it is something that may get overlooked. You may find that increase in Tinnitus is actually from tension in your neck head from the position you are working in.
I have really bad tinnitus. A small part comes from loud music but the real part is from TMJ and issues due to tension. I have somatic tinnitus but it got a lot worse during lockdown and when I change my setup. Position of my gear etc. I thought it was my monitors until I found out it was TMJ instead.
Not trying to lessen the sound aspect of Tinnitus but tension wasn’t something I had on my radar until it happened to me.