http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/09/09..._in_europe.html
http://www.pcworld.com/article/172748/can_...on_the_way.html

So I frequently observe people listening to headphones at an unsafely loud level - when I can easily hear what is coming out of their earbuds, for example.

But from a public-health industry-regulation standpoint, regulating volume is much different than regulating parts-per-million of some substance in drinking water. This is because what constitutes unsafe volume is difficult to measure. Sure, we know that a certain decibel-level over a certain time-period ups risk of hearing loss. This is because the volume coming out of an mp3 player depends on two factors:
1) the player's volume-level setting, with some upper limit
2) the loudness of the media being played

Controlling the decibel-level coming out of a portable player is difficult, because the volume level of songs varies significantly. As anyone who uses or understands replaygain knows, albums can be mastered at different apparent-volume levels.
People who use the replaygain standard on their music (which results in the volume being lowered on the vast majority of songs) often have to set the volume level on mp3 players near the top, just to get a sufficient listening level.

If this EU policy is implemented as-is, let alone becoming the de facto worldwide standard, I wonder if people who use replaygain will have to stop doing so. (In my case, I apply mp3gain to files or apply a scalefactor upon encoding mp3's, and I do this because most players aren't replaygain-compatible)

Who wants to bet that the EU will start mandating sensitivity limits for headphones?

Who also wants to bet that this will only accelerate the loudness war?

I have the opposite problem. I have to reduce the level of all my tracks (with a RG derived value) so they are not too loud even on the Nano's minimum volume level. I only listen to my iPod in very quiet environments.

Maybe the EU could mandate that a volume switch should work like every other volume switch I have encountered and fades out from silence.

Of course the reason people have their iPods too loud is because of very loud ambient noise. Good luck trying to hear music at a safe volume in a busy city location.

@Axon – good point about potential acceleration of the loudness war. Better-mastered music (at least in the anti-loudness sense) would get the short end of the stick under these proposed EU regulations.
It’s still annoying to me that none of the articles I read about this issue (linked from Google News) mentioned anything about dangerous volume levels requiring a loud song as well as a loud player-volume level.

@audioapprentice – I doubt the EU is going to care about regulating low-end volume. That’s on Apple. In the meantime, I’ll remember not to buy a Nano (or other iPod, presumably) because I listen to mp3 player sometimes at very low volume while falling asleep.

uuuuuurrgg for goodness sake. I for one am against it, such nanny state policies are frustrating at best. Yes I agree it damages hearing and no I don't think that's a good thing but ffs you can just regulate EVERYTHING because someone might not act sensibly and within moderation. People know it damages their hearing but don't care! All that will do is annoy a bunch of people including many who listen at sensible volume the vast majority of the time, that included me by the way.

Are they going to regulate and ban high fat content food like donuts because they are harmful to health causing long term damage too. Don't get me wrong I like the avls systems many things have intergrated but it should be an option. Nannying like this really gets on my nerves, wouldn't be so bad if it solved the problem it set out to resolve but it doesn't. If anything it exacerbates the problem. End of rant

Don't we have a volume limit already?

Anyway, I think the proposal is a very good idea - if any of you had actually read the article :roll-eyes: you'd have found that it's defeatable - you just click the "yes please I want to deafen myself" menu option, and the limit is removed.


I think timcupery makes an excellent point - the variance in loudness of music and sensitivity of headphones means this is meaningless for many listeners - it'll "just" cover people using the stock earphones with modern pop music. Of course, you could solve the problem properly, and in the unlikely event that someone from the EU ever asks me, I'll explain it to them.

Cheers,
David.