You know what I hate?

A couple of things really. But it’s essentially the same problem

iPod earbuds ($30…wtf?). Nothing, and I really mean nothing, about these are good. They’re designed poorly, preventing them from fitting in your ear in any way that makes sense. Along with this, if you do have to use them, you never have any idea what kind of sound bleed is occurring. I’m one of those people who tries to be extremely conscious of those around me, namely if I’m doing anything that could be disruptive to someone else.

So I’m sitting here in my Informatics class, about 15 minutes before the lecture starts, and there’s this kid about three seats away from me. He’s quite happily listening to the first (major) Fall Out Boy album. But it’s not so happy for me. What I hear is everything from about 2-4k and up, attenuated slightly because of his ear, just grinding in that range that bugs the hell out of me. Why do a) people need to listen to Fall Out Boy so damn loud and b) have no Idea that they’re being completely obnoxious?

There’s really no good answer for the first one. Most people, especially in the 13 – 30 range have absolutely no idea what they’re doing to their hearing. In an age of being bombarded by multimedia and music being a defining point of who we are, people seem to what to listen to more, louder. What they don’t realize is that extended exposure to high SPL sources wreak havoc on your hearing. Most of these people are going to have advanced hearing loss as early as 25, 30, 40. At that point there won’t be a thing to do about it.

The second, I think, is also a product of our age. People are so immensely self-involved that they could care less if something they’re doing is potentially bothering someone around them. I could care less about political correctness, stereotypes are there because they’re true most of the time, and I’m going to talk about what I want to. But. Other people around me, namely ones I don’t know, probably don’t always feel the same way. So I generally go out of my way to be very conscious. I would implore you to try this for a week at least. See what happens.

Having said all that, I present you with some epic failure in live sound reinforcement.

Marshall failure.