The Wirecutter Show Episode 11: Life Is Too Loud
LAUREN: So, you know, look, every so often we all do need to have our emo moments and pump the music and be like, you know, living our best lives in that. But then you can bring it back down and take a break, you know, take them off, take a walk, go into a quiet room somewhere
CHRISTINE: I’m Christine Cyr Clisset.
CAIRA: I’m Caira Blackwell.
ROSIE: I’m Rosie Guerin and you’re listening to The Wirecutter Show.
ROSIE: Hey there, just a quick note to say that today, we are re-airing an episode we really love that originally came out in October of last year. It’s about all the ways that life can get a little too loud for your ears and about some of the products that can help protect them.
We hope you enjoy it!
CHRISTINE: Hey, Caira and Rosie.
CAIRA: Hey.
ROSIE: Hello.
CHRISTINE: I have a personal question: Have either of you ever been afraid that you might be losing your hearing?
CAIRA: Oh Definitely. It’s almost inevitable. Especially living in New York.
CHRISTINE: Yeah. This has been something I’ve been thinking about this year. I am starting to feel like my kids are mumbling at me all the time and I’m kind of terrified of becoming an old lady who can’t hear anything and I was actually reading recently that there are over a hundred million people in the United States who are exposed to just too much noise like an unhealthy level of noise.
CAIRA: Wow.
ROSIE: Because I obviously work in audio and I listen to a lot of books and podcasts, I almost constantly have headphones or AirPods in. And so I’ve been curious about this hearing loss question for a long time. And so I looked up this decibel chart that lays out the noise level of certain common sounds you might encounter. So I want to quiz you guys – I wanna see where your baseline knowledge is.
CHRISTINE: Okay. Is this going to damage our hearing?
ROSIE: No, no. With these dulcet tones? Okay, So you tell me if you think the following sounds are moderate. Loud. Very loud. Uncomfortable or painful and dangerous on this chart. All right. So first: Where do you think lawnmowers are?
CAIRA: Uncomfortable.
CHRISTINE: Loud?
ROSIE: Lawnmowers – very loud.
CHRISTINE: Very loud. Okay.
ROSIE: And Fireworks?
CAIRA: Dangerous.
CHRISTINE: Dangerous?
ROSIE: Yeah. Fireworks are considered painful and dangerous. So, I mean, there’s guidance that you want to use hearing protection or try and avoid them entirely. Okay, so the next one here: the New York City subway.
CAIRA: Painful.
CHRISTINE: Painful.
ROSIE: huh. Well, there’s an asterisk here because obviously it kind of depends whether you’re on the subway, whether you’re standing on the platform. But for the most part, they’ve tested it. And those levels are in the very loud —
CAIRA: No way.
ROSIE: Yeah. Very loud range. Yeah.
CAIRA: Do they –do they get the little parts when the train is screeching against the rails?
ROSIE: We would have to do some further reporting on how loud the screech is. But yeah, very loud, meaning dangerous over 30 minutes of exposure. So again, there’s a range, but I found that to be very interesting. How about cruising altitude on an airplane?
CHRISTINE: Moderate?
CAIRA: Loud?
ROSIE: Jet planes during takeoff can be in that uncomfortable level. Dangerous over 30 seconds. If you’re in a cruising altitude, it can be a little bit lower than that. But generally speaking, there’s a reason why folks cover their ears with noise canceling ….or earmuffs on an airplane. Yeah, because it can be quite loud.
CHRISTINE: Wow. So not only do some people now need to wear masks on planes, but also earphones. Just like cover up, block everything.
ROSIE: Cover up!
CAIRA: Yikes. Well, that’s why I’m so glad we’re going to have Lauren Dragan on next because she definitely would have aced that test. Lauren is Wirecutter’s in-house journalist for all things audio. She covers headphones. She’s also done a lot of research on over-the-counter hearing aids and also noise induced hearing loss in kids. So she can really tell us what’s going on with the noise around us and how it affects our health.
ROSIE: I’ve got questions for Lauren. Lots of questions!
CHRISTINE: So many questions!
CAIRA: take notes.
CHRISTINE: Well, first, we’re going to take a quick break. And when we’re back, Lauren will walk us through some simple solutions for keeping our ears safe. Stay tuned.
CAIRA: Welcome back to The Wirecutter Show. Today our guest is Lauren Dragan, who I’m really excited about because she’s Wirecutter’s senior staff writer who covers audio equipment and headphones. And I think she’s reviewed something like 2000 headphones.
CHRISTINE: I think she’s getting really close to that number.
CAIRA: I mean, it’s unreal. She also has a degree in music performance and audio production from Ithaca College. And she’s done extensive reporting on kids’ headphones and hearing loss. And that has appeared on places like Good Morning America, the BBC and NBC Nightly News, which is so cool.
CHRISTINE: Lauren, welcome to The Wirecutter Show!
LAUREN: Hey, thanks for having me.
CHRISTINE: Lauren, you’re a Wirecutter veteran. You’ve been working here even longer than I have, which makes us both ancient here. And I know you’ve gone to some really extreme lengths to test headphones, like tested in extreme heat and cold and sweat and all of that…
LAUREN: Yeah. Well, you know, it’s the funny thing is, you get these anecdotes from people saying that, you know, they live in certain places and you have to think about their environments. And so I live in L.A. so I have access to heat most of the time. But, you know, sometimes there’s things you need to test where I’ve had to put headphones into a freezer. I have gone into saunas and tested how much earpads collect sweat. I have gone running in 102 degree weather. I have stepped on things with my Doc Martens. I mean, we’ve done all sorts of weird stuff, thrown stuff down stairs, showered with them. I spray them with fake sweat.
ROSIE: Lauren, what is fake sweat? Please. Tell the people. Tell me.
LAUREN: Oh my God. Okay, so here’s the thing. Most of the time when things break down with water damage, it’s actually more likely it’s what’s in the water than the water itself that’s breaking the electronics, unless it’s like actively getting inside. So to replicate that, often the salt is what’s causing a corrosive effect. So we actually created basically a recipe. And I make that up and I spray the headphones with it and I mash a bunch of buttons. And then I keep doing that for a while to kind of simulate that build up and see if it causes anything to go sideways.
CAIRA: Not you creating a recipe for sweat! I love this. Lauren, we really brought you in today because we want to talk about sound. Like how noisy the world is. So I’m really curious what you think is contributing to that, like how loud the world is?
LAUREN: My gosh. Well, I mean, first of all, the industrial revolution. Let’s start there. But seriously, you know, everything around us now is making a lot more noise. You know, we’ve got a lot more traffic and people living in cities, and the subway. And then you’ve got more media. So you’ve got, you know, television and headphones on and it sort of becomes this confluence of different types of noise that are all contributing to you getting a sustained level of sound that we were not genetically ready for, from an evolutionary perspective, we’re not supposed to get that level of noise all the time. You know, we’re supposed to get occasional thunderstorms and then mostly pretty quiet. So it’s just, you know, part of living in a modern society with machines.
CHRISTINE: I think that many people might have a vague sense that they’re exposed to too much noise, especially at really loud events like concerts. But what are some of the ways everyday noises can impact your health?
LAUREN: Well, there’s a couple of different ways. So, I mean, first of all, yes, hearing loss can be part of it. But also, there’s been studies done that essentially have said that it also affects us emotionally. So it can affect our ability to be able to focus. It also can make us depressed. So a lot of noise is not just something that can be physically damaging, but also psychologically damaging.
CHRISTINE: And I believe there’s also been some studies that have shown that too much noise can contribute to other physical health problems like hypertension, stroke and heart attacks.
LAUREN: Absolutely. So that all is kind of tied together. I mean, if you have higher stress, it’s going to add to hypertension. And so you think about all these things, it’s a cause and effect, like a domino effect through our bodies. And so it sounds like something small, like noise. But actually, each of those added effects can create a larger ballooning problem.
CAIRA: And this is also harder for people with sensory processing issues too, right? Like making things quieter can be an accessibility thing as well.
LAUREN: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. People who have sensory processing issues, people that are on the autism spectrum that have that, it can be really, really difficult to just live your day to day life because you’re constantly being bombarded with this overwhelming wave of sound to you. It kind of affects everyone. You know, it’s not just any one person’s isolated issue. It’s everyone.
CAIRA: And is there a particular sound level where you really should start to worry?
LAUREN: Here’s the thing about that. So a lot of times you’ll see 85 DB bandied about
CHRISTINE: What does DB mean?
LAUREN: Decibels. So we’re realizing that anything above, really, 75 for a long time can start to cause damage. But it’s trickier than that because it’s not just about the sound level, it’s about everyone individually. So, for example, Brian Fligor, who is an audiologist that I met with, gave me a really great metaphor of basically: it’s like sunburn. Some people are more predisposed to sunburn. And in the same way, some people are more predisposed to hearing loss. So you might have a situation where, you have somebody who’d be like, “Wow, I don’t know. I’ve – my whole life I’ve been listening to loud stuff and I’ve never had a problem.” But then you might have someone who’s like, “I’ve never really done much of anything and I’ve had some damage.” It’s really hard to say which one you are. And so that’s kind of why we try to tell people to air on the side of caution and think about it as a noise diet as opposed to one loud sound, because most of us, it isn’t one big loud sound. It’s the accumulation of lots of sounds over the span of a long period of time.
ROSIE: So, Lauren, just taking this idea of a diet, how would I know if I’m being exposed to too much noise in my everyday life? You know, if I’m not in a situation where I’m hearing a specific loud noise, beyond carrying around, let’s say, a decibel meter or using my kind of general sense of what feels too loud, how can I determine for sure? And I’m asking kind of on behalf of myself, but also for my kids.
LAUREN: Yeah, absolutely. Believe it or not, the great news is that in the last few years, tech companies have really responded to this call. The World Health Organization has been, for years, trying to encourage all the big tech companies to start doing more for this. So first of all, Apple has one of the most robust systems you can use. So the Apple Watch, one of the widgets that you can have on the watch itself is a DB meter. And is it perfect? No, but it’s pretty close. Like I’ve actually taken a DB meter and held it up near my head and checked and it’s close enough to really give you an indication and that will give you some warnings. Your iPhone and your iPad will also be tracking how loud you listen on your headphones. And they can – if you look in your health app, in there, there’s a section on hearing and you can see how long you’ve been exposed to noises over a certain level when you were exposed to something that was too much. And you can even set it up to give you a little warning. So like, I’ll get a little ping that it’s getting too loud in here. You need to do something.
CAIRA: I guess that’s all the time like that when my music is too loud. But I just ignore it immediately.
LAUREN: Well, all right.
CHRISTINE: Lauren, are there similar notifications on like a Google Pixel or some other Android phone?
LAUREN: So, some of them do. Like the thing about Android that’s really tricky is Android is so broad it really depends on the individual phone. But I know that some Samsung devices have a volume limit in there, so you can actually go in and you can set a maximum volume level. The other thing you can do is there is an app by NIOSH, it has the clever name of sound level meter. It’s an app you can install. You can use that if you want to check with your phone. You just kind of hold it up and see if you’re kind of like, Is it loud in here? I’ve done that a couple of times. Before I had the Apple Watch. I would use it in spin classes, at gatherings where like a party, it’s all indoors and everything’s reflecting off of the walls, things like that. But usually, I mean, if you find yourself at a point where you are actively raising your voice to be able to be heard or you find yourself leaning into people going, “what?” It’s probably too loud.
ROSIE: So ten out of ten spin classes are too loud?
LAUREN: Yes.
CHRISTINE: Lauren, I am really afraid to ask you this next question because I suspect that I have hearing loss. I told Rosie and Caira this already, but I want to hear it from you. What are the signs that might indicate that you have some hearing damage?
LAUREN: Okay, so there’s a couple of things. The first thing is, do you find that you’re asking people to repeat themselves in order to understand what they’re saying? Do you find that you’re looking at people’s faces that helps you to hear better? Sometimes we’re looking at mouths and using that as a contextual clue. Are other people sometimes telling you they’re kind of talking too loud a lot? Do you find that when you’re sitting and you’re with someone else and they’re watching television, you go, “can we turn it up? Because I can’t I can’t understand what they’re saying.” Those are all kind of early signs that you might be having some hearing loss. The other good thing is that there’s places like Best Buy has a hearing test.
CHRISTINE: You just go into a Best Buy and you can do a hearing test there.
LAUREN: Yeah, But I know the Costco too, Costco also has a hearing health center that does free hearing tests. So there’s a lot of places you can go just to get a free screening.
CAIRA: Okay. So what I’m hearing is that, yes, noise levels for a long period of time can be detrimental to your health. So to kind of make sure that that’s not happening to you, you should be able to set up something on your device, on your phone, whatever you have, that basically pings you to let you know if the volume is too loud and you do want to take a break. You also might want to take notice if you think that people are mumbling more often or you just can’t really hear the TV, that well. That might be a sign that your hearing is not as good as it used to be. And it’s really important that, if you can, if it’s accessible to you, to maybe go to your local Costco or Best Buy and take a hearing test and you can see really see what the situation is.
CHRISTINE: We’re going to take a quick break. And when we’re back, we’ll talk through strategies for reducing everyday noise pollution, some of which are free or at least very inexpensive.
CAIRA: We’ll be right back.
CHRISTINE: Welcome back to The Wirecutter Show. This episode we’re talking with Wirecutter’s headphone writer Lauren Dragan, and we’re covering all the ways that noise pollution can impact your health and what you can do about it.
CAIRA: So earlier we talked about how everyday noise pollution can actually cause physical and mental health problems and how to tell if you’re exposed to an unhealthy amount of noise. So we’ve already talked about the problem, but now we want to talk about the solution.
CHRISTINE: What are the things that you do, Lauren, what are the strategies you use to make sure that you’re not exposed to too much habitual noise?
LAUREN: Okay. So the first thing I’m going to say to people is earplugs. Earplugs. Earplugs. Earplugs. Now, everyone, when you hear earplugs. You think those crummy foam things that are like orange, that you get it like the store and everything sounds like you’re talking to one of the adults in the Charlie Brown movies. No, we actually have earplugs that are made for musicians, concerts and things like that. I use the Loop Experience 2, or the Loop Switch. They’re really small. They’re super easy to pop in, and you don’t really even really look like you’re wearing anything unless someone looks at you. And even then they kind of look cool. They look sort of like gauges or jewelry. And what’s great about them is it brings everything down, but it doesn’t make that you can’t hear things around you. So I love them for concerts, for spin class, and like I said, I keep them on my wallet. And they’re also great for like clubs or, you know, those restaurants that start out as a restaurant and then they turn incrementally more clubby as the night goes on and suddenly you’re like, “Why are we screaming?” Great for those as well. …Sporting events, a lot of times get really loud and we can wear earplugs. We can also wear noise canceling headphones. Those are really great. So noise canceling and noise isolating, you don’t necessarily have to have technology.
CAIRA: What’s the difference between noise canceling and noise isolating?
LAUREN: Okay, so noise canceling is an active technology that basically creates an opposite wave form of the sound that it’s trying to cancel. Think of it this way: it’s like if you’ve ever taken a jump rope and moved it up and down and you create that little ripple wave in the middle. If somebody did the exact opposite, when you went down, they went up, you’d kind of end up with like nothing in the middle, right? It would just kind of – same idea. So it’s basically a counteracting waveform that goes in and helps to reduce the noise that actually reaches your ear. So it works best on lower frequency sounds, sustained sounds. So things like subway hum, fans, traffic whooshes and things like that, because it gives it the time to actually take the sound input and react and do something with it. Higher frequencies, though, are not as well impacted by noise cancellation. So that’s where isolation comes in. So isolation is essentially something physical between your ear and the world. Some of the best noise canceling headphones use a combination of the two. They have a very isolating ear cup or tip and they have the active noise cancellation to help reduce those low frequency sounds.
CHRISTINE: And what are some models of headphones that you would recommend in those categories?
LAUREN: So for earbuds, I love the – ugh Sony and their names, I’m telling you. The WF1000XM5. I know you’re going to remember that for the rest of your lives.
ROSIE: Sure. The XM5.
LAUREN: Not to be confused with the WHXM5 which are the headphones. But essentially those are fantastic. And one of the reasons I like them is their noise cancellation is great, but they also have really good isolation. So if you’re in a place where you’re going to be hearing a lot of people talking or babies crying or things, you just want to like zone out. Those are really great models for that specifically. Bose does a good job with their active noise cancellation, the Noise Canceling Headphones 700. They’re kind of an older model that have been around for a while, but they’re still really effective. You can get some of the newer models. They’re fine, but quite frankly, there’s not a whole lot of reason to spend extra money when the 700 are still around. Another thing you can do is look, if you already have headphones that you like, specifically earbuds, there’s a company called Comply. They make ear tips for all sorts of different manufacturers of earbuds. And you can basically buy their tips that are isolating and they’re basically a little memory foam. And so you could buy new tips instead of buying new headphones or earbuds, I should say.
CAIRA: That’s nice.
ROSIE: We’re going to put all of this in our show notes, too, I should just say, because I think these are all really good recommendations. But unless you’re furiously writing them down, which I am! Buy you know.
LAUREN: So it isn’t going to be a quiz? Some people also find that noise cancellation can feel a little artificial and weird. We call it eardrum suck. Some people are sensitive to it. I’m one of them. There’s just good old fashioned hearing protection. So earmuffs. And that’s really good for, you know, obviously industrial use. Also, kids, you know, when you have little ones, you’re not going to want to put earbuds in their ears because they may as well put them in their mouth and swallow them. So there’s a company called Ems for Kids. They have little baby earmuffs that are adorable and the little stretchy, soft little ear cups. There’s Muted, which is another company that has for bigger kids, those types of ear muffs. And they come in a lot of cute designs like robots and, you know, pink unicorn type stuff. And then older kids, so we’re talking like tweens and teens, Loop–the same company that I use for my earplugs also makes kid size ones. There’s a Loop Kids. So that’s another option.
CHRISTINE: What about other things besides buying headphones? Are there things you can do in your own environment to kind of just manage the noise a little bit better?
LAUREN: You can do the best you can in terms of trying to reduce sound in your house. I mean, being mindful of your own noise production is a great way of doing things. Like I said, watching your television levels, watching how loud your stereo is and things like that if you’re listening to music. But, you know, sometimes we can avoid it. Sometimes there’s just–we have neighbors, we live in cities. There’s really not a lot that we can do aside from like closing our windows and hoping for the best, you know? I mean, yes, you could soundproof your house. I’m going to say there’s going to be someone who’s going to come and be like, well, you could put in soundproofing. It is so expensive, by the way. And as a renter, it’s something that a lot of landlords will not let you do. I’ve looked into it, so…And then I oftentimes put on headphones to just have some quiet and not necessarily listen to anything in it, but just have the silence.
CAIRA: I’ve also been seeing more public spaces where there’s like a quiet area.
CHRISTINE: I was just at a waterpark this summer that had one of those.
CAIRA: Really?
CHRISTINE: Yeah, It was like a sensory room for people who needed a quiet space.
CAIRA: That’s awesome.
CAIRA: Something that you mentioned earlier, just like when life is really too loud and all you can do is put in headphones. I’m very guilty of that. I live on a first floor apartment so I can really hear everything from the street. So I will even be at home and I’ll put in headphones. But my issue is that I am playing music. I don’t just sit there in silence and I feel like it’s become counterintuitive now because I’ll be blasting my music basically at all hours of the day when I’m walking around the city. When I’m sitting home at night. I feel like I don’t really know how to make sure that my headphones aren’t too loud.
LAUREN: I mean, I would say aside from all of the built in stuff, I mean, 60% of the volume for 60 minutes and then take a break. That’s kind of the rule of thumb.
ROSIE: 60 for 60.
LAUREN: Yeah. So set like a little, I don’t know, set a little timer. If you do have a little bit more exposure because like, look, we all want to have some fun once in a while. Like we all want to eat some cake occasionally and a little bit of cake is not going to kill you. But if you eat cake all day long, every day, that’s going to be the issue. So, you know, look, every so often we all do need to have our emo moments and pump the music and be like, you know, living our best lives in that. But then you can bring it back down and take a break, you know, take them off, take a walk, go into a quiet room somewhere. And that also helps to give your body a chance to process that. And then really, the better isolating your headphones are, the less you’ll need to turn up that volume to basically counteract what’s around you.
ROSIE: This is a hearing hygiene question for you, Lauren. Every night I fall asleep with my noise canceling AirPods in, usually listening to an audiobook. Is that bad?
LAUREN: Okay, so here’s the thing…
ROSIE: Hold my hand while you break my heart. Go ahead.
LAUREN: I know alright, alright, alright. So let me break it down to you. So the reason you oftentimes hear people say that it is not good for you is partly from a hygiene perspective. So just not giving your ears a physical time to breathe and clean out. Like if you’re someone who is a high producer of wax, that’s something you need to be kind of more cognizant of.
CAIRA: EW!
LAUREN: I know, I know. But it’s a real thing. I feel for those people.
CAIRA: But how do you know that?? Like I’m not …
CHRISTINE: You know, you know. You’re doctor will tell you.
LAUREN: You’ll see it in your tip– your ear tips. It will stick – like you, also, some people will notice that they just don’t hear as well over time. And they have to have it cleaned out because essentially it’s creates like a blockage. If you’re that sort of person, you’re not going to be someone who’s going to want to wear earplugs all night long because it’s going to exacerbate that issue. So that’s one of the reasons you hear it from a hygiene standpoint. Now, do I have an issue with people listening to quiet stuff as they fall asleep? No. You know, I think there sometimes has to be a realistic sort of balance of if you’re someone who’s having trouble falling asleep and you’re not getting sleep, it’s going to be bad for your health. So you might as well get the rest that you need and just watch your volume level. Just don’t have it on too long. I’m actually surprised you can sleep with the AirPods in…
CAIRA: That’s what I was saying.
CHRISTINE: But aren’t there sleep headphones?
LAUREN: Yes. So if you’re someone who, like me, is like, “ow!” there’s two things that we recommend. So there is a headband and it’s the Acoustic Sheep Sleep Phones Wireless, and they’re basically Bluetooth headphones that are in like a little headband and they sound good and have really soft speakers. They’re great for someone who just needs a little bit of white noise or, you know, soothing sounds or falling asleep to a meditation. They’re great for that. They aren’t as isolating, though, for someone who needs to deal with a snoring partner. The Soundcore Sleep A20 is the first sleep earbud that I’ve tried that I’ve actually been like, “holy cow, these actually are really great.”
CHRISTINE: Like, they will really block out snoring because that’s something I need.
LAUREN: Yes. The combination of the physical earbud, the wing and the tip blocks your ear can, so you’re already getting a lot of isolation from noises around you. And then the other thing you can do if it’s disrupting you, because for me, it’s not so much like the sound as it is like the lack of sound and then more sound like I can fall asleep to a hum. No problem. But snoring, it’s so start and stop. That’s what makes my brain react. So you can try to find a masking noise. So, what you do is you’re going to look for something that’s in the same frequency range as the sound that’s bugging you. So if it’s a snore you’re going to want something, it’s a little bit of a lower pitch sound like ocean waves or what they call Brown Noise, like it’s a lower pitch. If it’s a higher pitch, something like, you know, baby cries or squeaky like, let’s say you live somewhere where there’s like a squeaky gate outside and just constantly driving you nuts, that’s something higher pitch. So you’re going to look for stuff that’s like White Noise, Pink Noise or things that have more higher pitched sounds in it to try to mask it. So rain is really good for that. It helps to block it really well. Then there’s Violet Noise. Violet Noise is really high pitched. But that’s great for people who have tinnitus, or hear like hisses or sizzles and want to try to cover that up. So that’s another thing you can do is kind of create it so that your brain essentially isn’t responding to every single time you hear that sound. It sort of gets lulled into the idea that this is a normal sound that’s just sort of happening and it’s soothing and part of my environment, and I can sleep.
ROSIE: So we spoke about the Em’s for Kids baby earmuffs. We spoke about the Muted earmuffs for older kids. You recommended the Loop. I’m wondering, do you have recommendations for noise limiting and noise cancellation for kids? Are there specific product recommendations for those?
LAUREN: Yeah, there’s actually… so Puro makes our favorite kids headphones and they have a version that is noise canceling so the Puro Quiet Plus. And they’re great. I mean they are noise canceling headphones, kid-sized, they’re you know, well-made. They sound good. Our kids that were really, really young like them all the way up to tweens. So it’s the kind of thing that if you buy it, it’ll last a while. And they’re great. I mean, my kiddo uses them whenever we’re on a plane.
CHRISTINE: On this topic of kids headphones. I know you’ve done some incredible reporting around how some kids headphones are actually too loud and the sound can actually damage kids’ hearing. Tell us a little bit more about that.
LAUREN: Myself and Brent Butterworth, who’s my colleague, we really wanted to know whether some of these kid headphones were actually doing what they said they did. So most of them said “safe levels for kids,” which, first of all, safe is a really relative term. But some of them even had an 85 DB limitation listed on the label. So we decided to put it to the test and so we took them. We basically checked to see how much sound volume could come through them by using both pink noise and by using music. Because even though, yes, music isn’t going to be the same volume all the time, you’re still going to have peaks and valleys. So we tested both and we found that a bunch of the pairs that were out on the market went way over 85. I mean, some of them went up to like 104, which is like jet engine level. And so since then, part of all of our testing, whether or not it’s a pick or not, doesn’t matter, we measure the volume output of every single pair of kids headphones that we test and we keep a running list that has all of the headphones we’ve tested. So you can even check and see if the pair that you already have is in the safer levels.
CAIRA: What exactly does the setup look like when you’re testing these headphones? Like you said, that you worked with Brent. Is that because he has some special equipment? Like, what does that look like?
LAUREN: Yes. So he has a GRAS Ear and Cheek simulator with an artificial Pinna. And essentially what it looks like is a silicone ear. Okay? An anatomical silicone ear with a little metal chamber underneath it that replicates the resonance that happens inside of the human ear. And then in that, there’s a microphone and that’s clamped onto a surface. And what we’ll do is, you put the headphone on there and you crank up the volume. And so we tried different ways. We tried it via the Bluetooth, via the cables, we tried using different devices because sometimes things that have more power like a sound system versus a laptop, you might be able to get louder that way. So we tried different things. And essentially it goes into measurement software that’s on a computer. And what it does is it basically measures how much sound is coming out.
ROSIE: So this is literally like an ear you built?
LAUREN: Now, we actually… we bought it was purchased. So there’s there’s companies that make these things.
ROSIE: That’s fascinating. What do you do with the headphones when you’re done testing?
LAUREN: So if it’s a pick, we hang on to it and we continue long term testing them. We’re constantly using these things. We’re constantly, you know, doing software updates. We’re checking to see if there’s any problems people are having. I troubleshoot all the time. Now, if it’s not a pick, I’m super duper careful with every single pair that I get and I make sure that I keep all the little stickers and things in place and I put everything back there really nicely and then we donate them. And so it doesn’t just go to waste. And no, we don’t get to keep them. And trust me, I don’t want to. It has like 250 pairs a year. I don’t have the room.
CAIRA: Or the ears.
LAUREN: My gosh. It’s just …it’s insane.
ROSIE: The number of mechanical ears you’d need!
LAUREN: You’d need so many!
CAIRA: So, Lauren, before we wrap, we always ask our guests one final question. What’s the last thing you bought recently that you really loved?
LAUREN: Oh my gosh. I mean, one of the things that I bought really recently was the Bearaby Weighted Blanket.
CAIRA: Love.
LAUREN: It’s basically like really thick woven, T-shirt type material. And so if you can imagine that each of them is like a rope and then it’s braided together to make this, like, big braided blanket thing. I’m obsessed with that thing, and I love that it’s washable because I have dogs. And dogs do things that are disgusting sometimes and you just need to wash things. And so it has made such a huge difference in my sleep and has made a big difference in just the fact that it breathes and it’s clean. It’s yeah… so that’s one of the things that I bought, you know, not too long ago that I am obsessed with.
ROSIE: Can you imagine the weighted blanket plus the noise canceling at night? You would just go to another galaxy.
CAIRA: You might sleep these 24 hours?
ROSIE: That’s like the dream.
LAUREN: I’m not saying I have a perfect job, but, like, the fact that that’s kind of technically my Job is kind of awesome. Napping for work.
ROSIE: Lauren, thank you so much for joining us. This was awesome.
LAUREN: Thank you so much for having me. It’s been a blast.
CHRISTINE: Okay, guys. I think I’ve learned that I have hearing loss.
CAIRA: You have to go get a hearing test.
CHRISTINE: I have to go to Costco or something.
CAIRA: Yeah.
CHRISTINE: Yeah. Well what did you take away from this?
CAIRA: I really liked Lauren’s 60 for 60 rule, which is like 60% of your total volume bar for 60 minutes. That’ll definitely be easy for me when I’m just sitting at home and I’m trying to drown out the loud honking from the street. So I love that.
ROSIE: If you start at, you know, 90. Just take it down to 80, right? Then maybe 70. And then your ears will get used to 60 someday.
CAIRA: And then I’ll, like, have them forever, right?
ROSIE: Your ears? Yeah, hopefully.
CHRISTINE: Hopefully. I mean, whether they work or not is another question.
ROSIE: My takeaway is that I am going to experiment now with brown noise and pink noise in addition to white to sort of filter out different noises based on the different frequencies. And maybe actually, it’s not always white noise that I need. Maybe brown noise could be more helpful. Maybe violet, maybe pink.
CAIRA: Yeah, I think that’s really cool. I didn’t even really realize that there’s anything other than white noise. So tell me how it goes.
ROSIE: I will.
CHRISTINE: I want to know if it really works on snoring, because I might need it. So for me, I think that I’ve realized now that I want to get some of these loop earplugs for myself and for my kids. I think there’s a lot of instances when I’m just in daily life going in the subway or when we’re around loud noises that I would want to wear them and that I definitely want to have my kids protected.
ROSIE: That’s so good. I’m going to go back and look at the specific products that she recommends, because this conversation has made me even more intent on protecting my kids’ hearing.
CHRISTINE: Yeah. And we’ll include all of those in the show notes.
ROSIE: Absolutely. And if you want to find out more about Wirecutter’s coverage in general, if you want to, as Christine said, check out the products we recommended today. Go to nytimes.com, slash Wirecutter or find a link in the show notes. That’s it. We’ll see you. See you next week.
ROSIE: The Wirecutter Show is executive produced by Rosie Guerin and produced by Abigail Keel. Editing by Abigail Keel. Engineering support from Maddy Masiello and Nick Pittman. Today’s episode was mixed by Daniel Ramirez. This episode was mixed by Daniel Ramirez and Catherine Anderson. Today’s episode was mixed by Catherine Anderson. Original music by Dan Powell, Marion Lozano, Elisheba Itoop and Diane Wong. Wirecutter’s Deputy Publisher and interim General Manager is Cliff Levy. Ben Frumin is Wirecutters Editor in chief.
CAIRA: I’m Caira Blackwell.
CHRISTINE: I’m Christine Cyr Clisset.
ROSIE: And I’m Rosie Guerin. Thank you for listening.
