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I am fond of listening to loud music and when this is not the case, I always have my earphones on. I have previously come across suggestions that prolonged earphone use can damage the ears. How severe can this be?
It all depends on how loud you have it. If the music is quiet and soft I don't see how prolonged use can damage your ears.
Earphones are quite safe, especially when you are using them with the recommended volume. The headphones (that go over the ear) are the ones that can cause damage, not only if the music is being played loudly, but also if they are used for too long.
I've always had earphones in my ears ever since I can remember and up to this day I've never had any issues. Of course I keep my volume within the recommended levels. Other than that, I have them in for hours and hours each day no problem.
I've heard that even if you keep the volume down, headphones can cause hearing loss in a certain range of sounds. However I have been using them every day for years and never suffered any hearing loss, so as long as you aren't blasting your ears, I don't see why you wouldn't be fine.
Re-phrasing the question might help us see the answer. Does music itself have the same effect when being able to flow freely through the air as opposed to only traveling through a "closed circuit"?
Condensed sound waves? Now you're getting into the physics of it all Concorde. Way to go. Music is sound which is vibration, so if you're going to condense that vibration into a set of headphones that go directly into your ears, you might want to keep the volume lower than if you're listening through regular speakers. That's my uneducated guess at least.