Bigger Earbuds will Hurt Eardrums More?

Sony MDR-EX51LP I have a pair of the Sony MDR-EX51LP in-ear earphones. They come with varying sizes of earbuds — 3 pairs in total. I usually use the smaller pair because my ear cannals are small (the whole reason I bought in-ear headphones in the first place). Now that I have an iPod, the bass isn’t loud enough. Serious wtf.

Just tried on the medium sized earbuds. They sound great! Not only has the bass gone up, the volume went up a bit in general. With so many stories about hearing loss I can’t help realizing that my ears are going to fall off one day.

But then again, on the technical side, if the sound coming from earphones is constant, the damage the earbuds do would be the same right? Just because I use bigger earbuds, my eardrums wouldn’t feel more vibrations (although that is what I feel when I hear louder music) right? Do the earbuds amplify the sound or something?

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  1. 1November 9th, 2005Leo Kent says

    Well if you listen to your music really loud all of the time I would guess that you might damage your eardrums regardless of the type of headphone. As long as it doesn’t physically hurt, I would have thought that they would be fine…

  2. 2November 9th, 2005Oliver Zheng says

    Yeah hopefully. Also I just learned that the strong bass comes from the fact that they are in-ear headphones, not because they are “high fidelity” or anything.

  3. 3November 10th, 2005Anurag Bhandari says

    Yeah you are right! The hi-fi headsets do give extreme experience and incredible bass(which I must admit I like the most ;) ) but they do harm the ears in some or the other way. But if you are asking me, then I must say, this doesn’t stops me for enjoying some good music on high volume and full bass.

  4. 4November 10th, 2005Oliver Zheng says

    That’s the spirit!

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