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Apple's AirPods Pro hearing health features

(www.theverge.com)
282 points elsewhen | 1 comments | 22 Oct 24 00:25 UTC | HN request time: 0.001s | source
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an_d_rew ◴[22 Oct 24 02:35 UTC] No.41910659[source]▶
As a mid-50 year old who discovered two years ago that he has moderate hearing loss (50-55 dB HL), I will be forever grateful to Apple for doing this.

If anybody from the accessibility teams is reading this, please know that it is difficult for me to overstate my gratitude and my appreciation for the amount of work this must've taken.

Music sounds unbelievably better through my AirPod pros, and I didn't even know what I had lost until I heard it again.

I'm willing to bet that a lot of my middle aged compatriots don't even know how much their hearing has degraded… Get your hearing test tested, folks, while you still have it!

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analog31 ◴[22 Oct 24 02:49 UTC] No.41910729[source]▶
Yes, and protect your hearing while you can. Turn down your tunes.

Disclosure: Working musician. I wear musician's earplugs when playing in bands.

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Semaphor ◴[22 Oct 24 04:57 UTC] No.41911315[source]▶
> I wear musician's earplugs when playing in bands.

As a musician, you possibly have custom ones, but for anyone else who’s not an audiophile, you can get decent ones that mostly preserve the sound while lowering the volume for around $15-20. A godsend for concerts.

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analog31 ◴[22 Oct 24 05:37 UTC] No.41911492[source]▶
I actually just use the Etymotic ER20's. I'd rather have cheaper ones that I can afford to lose, and also have a pair in each instrument case.
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1. analog31 ◴[22 Oct 24 15:34 UTC] No.41915330{3}[source]▶
I'm past the edit window here, but have a couple more thoughts. First, I'm just a jazz player, so my gigs can get loud, but not screaming stooopid loud. Second, I am almost always amplified on stage, meaning that the most delicate subtleties of optimal tone quality are lost anyway.

Many of the rock players are moving to in-ear monitors, which block everything but replace it with your monitor mix, received via wireless.

On the other hand, some band mates, and my kids, play classical. Their needs are a lot more critical in terms of perceiving their tone quality. A benefit of the fitted plugs is that you can get the capsules with less attenuation, which means you're still safe in something like a classical ensemble, but without losing too much.