Re: [microsound] Re: grabbing people by the balls (dumbtype et al)

[Jason Cunliffe <jason.cunliffe@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

> Speaking of excessive sound...keep your eyes open in the next few years
for
> class action lawsuits against perhaps music venues, artists, promoters, or
> manufacturers of equipment of "loud" music.  As the population who has
> attended a lot of loud music ages and they lose their hearing and their
> indignant, property-owning asses rise up, there will no doubt be some
> attempt at recouping their "loss."  Also, keep your eyes out for a company
> that makes the miracle hearing aid and/or tinnitus cure.  Buy stock in it,
> and you will be rich :)


hi: I just joined this great list

yep..

Some years ago I met the extremely sympathetic head of the French Ministry
for the Environment - Noise Deparment. A vibration engineer and passionate
music lover, his team had spent several years going everywhere measuring
sound levels and noting physical conmditions, length, variation etc..

An important part of his job was drafting the new Govt guidelines for
Environemntal Noise. This is covers a lot places - highways passing though
towns, pa/muzac systems in public paces, factories, equipment, workshops,
stores, schools, clubs etc..
Their reserach csled from teh obvious to hitech sonic equicavlent of passive
smoking.

They have been building and experimenting with highway sound barriers
throughout France for years now, and nwe roads all have afanstasic new quiet
surface material. One brilliant proposal - use recycled card tyres to build
barriers. He had a magnificent 'noise' map of the city of Lille on his wall.

Likewise, they were hoping to make architects more aware so that hospitals
and schools could be better designed to reduce chronic noise levels.

He told me the biggest difficulty they faced was determining the line
between individual freedom and tangible public health risk. Children were
their first concern, because chronic ambient noise levels is increasing at
alarming everywhere. They know that hearing has huge variations but that
damage mostly only shows up years later in lost perception. Exposure to
continous high levels is hard to evaluate still because accurate data is not
very old yet. [not much to work on].

The indications for very young children are very serious. Babies in prams
while boomboxes or TV are going all day long, living near noisy
intersections, etc..

He said the biggest shock was the measurement they made in almost all clubs.
Effectively he was convinced an entire generation will be having hearing
trouble in later years as a result. What was still not well understand was
the damage differences between traumatic one-off events with very high
levels [explosions, speaker-busting heavymetal stage] vs. chronic exposure
to "loud" environments[the difference between say bartender and customers].

Rule of thumb: if your ears are ringing that's damage - sooner or later.

../Jason