[pianotech] Hearing Improvement

[paul bruesch]

I'm not sure of every state's laws, but in Minnesota it is illegal to wear
headphones or earplugs while driving (Minnesota Statute 169.471(2)(a).)
Think about it... how are we alerted to certain events/circumstances while
driving? The police siren, the other driver without brakes who's about to
slam into you blasting his horn, the other driver locking her brakes and
screeching to, hopefully, a stop... if you have your music turned up so far
that you need earplugs to hear it, you're removing a sense (hearing) that is
very important to driving safety.

Not to mention that if you're in town (no one has said that, I know) it is
extremely annoying. Think "thumper cars."

It seems clear to me that having music turned to a volume which requires
earplugs also distracts from the business of driving, and we should not be
promoting it.  Crank 'er up to 11 when you get home.

My 2c
Paul Bruesch
Stillwater, MN

On Tue, Sep 8, 2009 at 5:39 PM, Kent Swafford <kswafford at gmail.com> wrote:

> The concept is much the same whether you are piano tuning or listening to
> music in a car. Improving the signal to noise ratio is good. Improving the
> signal to noise ratio is something you tend to learn if you do audio
> recording.
>
> To hear the details of music in a car, you want to turn up the music to be
> louder than the road noise. But doing so makes the music dangerously loud.
> Put in hearing protection and both the music _and_ road noise are
> attenuated. If the hearing protection is chosen to mask most of the road
> noise, then when you turn the music up, you safely hear the music without
> the road noise. Blaine knows of what he speaks.
>
> Piano tuning is much the same. Mask the environment sounds with hearing
> protection, then pound away on those test blows.
>
> Kent Swafford
>
>
>
> On Sep 8, 2009, at 2:43 PM, Diane Hofstetter wrote:
>
>
>> Earplugs are wonderful for tuning! They improve the signal to noise ratio,
>> thus making it easier to hear the piano by making the background noise less
>> prominent.
>>
>>
>>
>
> On Sep 8, 2009, at 10:18 AM, Blaine Hebert wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> Actually, what I was referring to was the improved sound quality with much
>> louder sound volume to drown out road noise.
>>
>>
>
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