On Saturday 11 November 2006 5:00 am, George Marshall wrote:

>I've just been told by my partner that she read somewhere that using
>headphones, even at low levels, spoils your hearing because parts of
>your hearing system become, in effect, redundant.  Tell me this isn't
>true, somebody please.

I'm sure listening to loud volumes would have a detrimental effect on
your hearing after long periods.  I've also read that some hearing loss
is also associated with listening to music from an MP3 or other compressed
audio format.  The reduced frequency range of those formats caused (or
could in theory cause) the ear to become less able to hear the high and
low frequencies which are stripped.  I can't recall the location of the
article at the moment, a bit of searching may be able to find it.

Jeff