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Comment by probably_wrong | Hacker News Reader

> As one RA employee puts it, dance music is "not made to be played to people wearing earplugs. When you put them in it's never going to sound the same."

This seems to me very similar to the reasons people give to avoid using condoms. And helmets. And smoking.

I think putting hundreds of young people in a room guaranteed to give you hearing loss is madness. But then again, I was always boring.

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A good club sound system doesn't actually need to be very loud. It will still be loud enough that long-term exposure will cause hearing loss, but not loud enough that you would be shocked when you walk in the room.

Unfortunately, a sound system of that quality is extremely expensive and requires skilled workers to operate each night, so only clubs in places that allow clubs to operate openly and make money can afford it.

If a city doesn't allow clubs to stay open all night, or if the police crack down on drug use, the clubs go underground and don't make any money (or won't invest it in equipment that may be confiscated). Then, they use lower-quality equipment that must be played too loud in order to fill the space, and don't hire sound engineers to operate the system properly and safely.

>operate

How do the accoustcs change from one day to the next?

People (or more specifically, their clothes). Its even worse in most club environments as you lack the acoustic absorbsrtion that you get from furniture in a seated venue.

https://www.prosoundtraining.com/2014/10/16/model-audience-a...

Also it changes from one track to the next. These days it's normally not that big of a deal because we have hit some kind of concensus about a good mix in most genres. But it will still change between genres. What's best for one isn't for another.

The technitian might also be key to keep the DJ in check. Nothing is worse than the sound of a clipping mixer because the DJ is inexperienced and thinks louder is better.

It's not always lack of experience: there's a mantra among some DJs that if you "aren't redlining you aren't headlining". I'm not a proponent of it, but I've heard the expression used more than a few times in the past couple years.

One of the most respected DJs in the Chicago footwork/juke scene always clips, at all times. It's apparently a thing.

You're right I could definitely see it working for juke and as a style for some other genres.

fleshy meatbags with cloth bits hanging off them mess with acoustics.

A good club sound system also needs enough speakers in the right places to give the same volume level across the floor.

People (and their clothes) absorb a lot of sound, especially in the higher frequencies. Cranking up a couple of horn tweeter (cringe) is not the solution; it only makes the stupid people deaf.

One of my favourite sound systems is Room 1 at Fabric in London, they have subs under the floor to help ease the strain on the main rig.

> A good club sound system doesn't actually need to be very loud

I was at Whiskey a Go Go not too long ago. The speaker stack for something that is really just a big room was insane.

Yeah, I agree. I wish that venues and soundguys would just fucking lower the volume. I definitely avoid a lot of venues for simply this reason!

I'm starting to think that people at venues ought to be able to sue venue owners for any sound that is over 85 decibels.

I'm sympathetic to your complaint, but consider that 85 dB is quieter than an unamplified symphony orchestra or the cabin of most cruising airliners.

Hmmm. Yeah maybe 85db is pretty low. There is some threshold that I feel pretty confident about, but I don't know what number it actually is. Looking here: http://www.webmd.com/brain/tc/harmful-noise-levels-topic-ove... I suspect it's more likely 110db.

I'm also maybe grumpier because I went to a show last night and I've had weird hearing all morning. :/

Well, extended exposure to 85 dB will cause hearing loss. I think a good techno club will not be louder than 100 dB.

But my point was that many environments we consider "safe", "normal", or "enjoyable" are actually dangerous to our hearing, so we have to enter them with an understanding that we are trading temporary enjoyment for long-term health.

The UK Health and Safety Executive has that you should go over an "Event LAeq of more than 107 dB or C-weighted peak sound pressure levels of more than 140 dB."

Which is quite loud.

Yup, and people who play instruments in orchestras do tend to experience hearing loss if they don't wear protection.

Well, you might be right, but it's probably important if you're creating music. If that's your job, it's a lot more damn important that you get it right than feeling X or Y exact sensation with or without a condom.

Also, I take issue with "putting hundreds of young people in a room guaranteed to give you hearing loss". I've never been much of one for live music, I'm certainly no roadie, but I've been to plenty of raves and concerts in my time. I've been known to run extremely loud sound systems in my cars, crank headphones to the max (shy of distortion, of course), stand against speakers at performances, and generally treat my hearing like total shit. And yet, in my mid-30s, I have no symptoms of hearing loss, or any tinnitus. In fact, at least in certain scenarios, I have phenomenal hearing. I can hear (or detect?) when my wife's car drives up outside the front of the house from the back room. I can hear the footsteps of my cat down the hall in the middle of the night. I routinely get comments like "how did you hear that??" I'm not saying it won't happen to me, but I'm saying there's a remarkable variance in how and when these symptoms strike different people.

Normal earplugs definitely will kill certain frequencies and change what you are hearing drastically, however using Etymotic style earplugs are a lot better, as they negate the high pressure waves, but still let a broad range of frequencies through - and they still allow normal talking levels when away from the music so you don't have to keep taking them in and out.

If they lowered the volume, people could hear each other and have conversations. This would make them drink less, which would be a huge loss for clubs. So they max out the volume to make people drink.

>When you put them in it's never going to sound the same

One of the nice things with wax plugs is you can adjust the volume by squishing so you can listen a bit without to see what you are missing.

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