Subject: Interesting special issue of Mix Magazine From: lazzaro <lazzaro@xxxxxxxx> Date: Sun, 6 May 2007 20:46:36 -0700 List-Archive:<http://lists.mcgill.ca/scripts/wa.exe?LIST=AUDITORY>Hi everyone, The May issue of Mix Magazine -- full-text online free here: http://mixonline.com/issue_20070501/ is a special issue on health hazards in audio workplaces. One article is on hearing damage due to in-ear monitoring for artists playing on amplified stages caught my eye: http://mixonline.com/live/applications/audio_quiet_stage/ The article was a surprise to me -- I would think that in-ear monitoring would always be healthier than having high-volume speaker wedges on the floor aimed at your head. But its not always so. It seems common on tours to find that the volume level set by the artists in their in-ear monitors increases as the tour goes on -- a bad sign. There are several causes discussed in the article, but the meta-issue seems to be that no one has the knowledge to set the levels correctly. The front-of-house mixer can't tell how much leakage is getting through the ear-canal seal. And so, the artists take control of their own levels, and tend to err on the side of too loud -- due to adaptation, I would guess, not to mention pre-occupation with performing. --- John Lazzaro http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~lazzaro lazzaro [at] cs [dot] berkeley [dot] edu ---