Listening Comfort & Volume Hygiene: Protecting Your Hearing Long-Term

Ambient soundscapes are intended to sit in the background of your consciousness, never in the foreground. A common mistake is turning up ambient noise to overpower loud external speech or construction work, which risks exposing the delicate stereocilia of the inner ear to damaging sound pressure levels.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), continuous exposure above 70 dBA over extended periods can contribute to noise-induced hearing injury. For long sessions exceeding two hours, ambient background levels should be calibrated below 60 dBA—roughly equivalent to a quiet conversation or gentle rainfall.

As a rule of thumb: if you cannot comfortably hear normal speech from someone standing two meters away while your ambient soundscape is playing through headphones, your volume is set dangerously high.