How Long Can You Listen Before It Becomes Noise
Short answer: It depends less on how loud the sound is than on where its energy sits. In my experience, thin high sound with nothing under it wears on you fastest, and so does anything that sits where hearing is sharpest. I can't give you a number of minutes, and I don't trust anyone who does.
What I ran into
An early version of the Space world in my project was tiring to listen to. It wasn't loud and nothing in it was ugly. It was just wearing, and after a while I wanted it off.
When I looked at what it was made of, two things stood out. Most of it was thin, high, held tones with nothing underneath them. And a couple of the sounds sat right in the range where hearing is sharpest. Both are bad choices for a sound that is supposed to stay on for hours.
Why that range
Human hearing is most sensitive between about 2 and 5 kHz. That is partly the shape of the ear canal, and it is where a raised voice, a baby's cry and most alarms sit. It is good at getting your attention, which is the opposite of what a background sound should do.
A sound with a lot of energy there feels closer and more insistent than its volume suggests. Turning it down helps less than you would expect, because that range is the last to fade. I wrote about that in Sound at Low Volume.
What I should say about "listening fatigue"
Audio people use the term a lot. According to the summary I found, it is not a recognised medical condition. It is a working term for the tiredness and discomfort that come from long listening, and nobody has a firm figure for when it sets in. So this article is my experience plus one well-established fact about hearing, and no more than that.
What I changed
I moved the Space sounds lower, took out the long held high tones, and gave each note some body underneath. Nothing got quieter. The world stopped being tiring.
If a sound is wearing you out
- Try something lower and darker before you try something quieter. Brown noise instead of white, for example.
- If your device has a tone or EQ control, turn the treble down a little.
- Take the headphones off for a few minutes every hour.
- If your ears ring or feel dull afterwards, it was too loud. That one is about volume, and it matters.
Sources
- Equal-loudness contour, Wikipedia: where hearing is most sensitive
- Listener fatigue, Wikipedia: what the term covers and its status
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