Suzanne Choney
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Christine Ingemi, with four children under the age of 11, faced a future of hearing music in quadraphonic sound, even though her kids wore earbuds with their iPods. They played their music loud, and she could easily hear it.

“I had the same battle every mother has, always trying to tell them to turn it down,” she said. “I just couldn’t really do anything to prevent it.”

So the New Hampshire mom got mad — and got an idea at the same time. She came up with earbuds that limit the volume from the music player to a safer level. Three thousand miles away, in California, another parent, Ken Wright, came up with a different concept for earphones after being concerned about his 13-year-old daughter’s hearing when she cranked up her iPod.

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Ingemi and Wright’s products are among several options now available for safer listening in response to concerns about potential hearing damage, especially in children, from iPods and other digital music players, as well as portable DVD and game players.

“In the 6- to 19-year-old age range, there is increasing prevalence of hearing loss, and as many as 12 percent of kids in that age range have measurable hearing loss,” said Alison Grimes, president of the American Academy of Audiology, and head of UCLA Medical Center’s Audiology Clinic.

“If you take a personal music device with an earphone, one that sits fairly deeply down the ear canal, we know that the sound pressure levels at the eardrum can be unacceptably high, depending on how loud the volume is turned up,” she said.

“People prefer to listen to music at loud levels; that’s very common. Unfortunately, the ear doesn’t have the tolerance to take that for long periods of time.”

Rockers and Baby Boomers who lived through The Concert Years have learned that. But those with younger ears have not.

Different approaches
Noise-canceling headphones, such as those made by Bose, Sony or Panasonic, can be one solution, but are often expensive.

Recently, various companies have announced new headphones for children that promote safer listening.
Image: Philips Earhook Headphones for children
Philips
Philips' SHK3020 headphones have a lockable volume control box, and are geared to young children.

Sony is coming out with its MDR-222KD headphones with more “moderate” volume levels than headphones adults would use.

Philips has a set of children’s headphones that include a volume lock for parents to set.

Another company, Safe ‘N Sound, has a set of ear hooks for $30 that have acoustic chambers “that direct the sound waves away from the eardrum by facing the speaker elements away from the ear canal,” according to the company’s Web site.

In 2006, Ingemi came up with iHearSafe earbuds ($20), which have a built-in volume limiter to keep the maximum audio level below 85 decibels.

“Audiologists have said at 85 decibels after 8 hours, hearing damage can begin,” Ingemi said.

Her product may be a good solution for younger children, who aren’t yet used to playing their music full-blast, especially “if you train them at an early age,” she said.

She realizes that it’s harder when children are older, and recalls her own efforts, from putting duct tape on the volume controls to downloading software from Apple that limits the iPod’s volume. Of course, she said, her children figured out how to undo that.

“They’re tech-savvy, so they knew how to delete the parental controls,” she said.

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Ingemi considers volume control a safety issue, much like seat belts and bicycle helmets.

“It took us awhile to get used to those things,” she said. “We’re trying to get kids while they’re young, so that they’re used to listening at a safe level, and they recognize that it’s a safe level for the future.”

CONTINUED: Being able to hear other sounds

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