<br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Thu, Mar 4, 2010 at 10:30 AM, Mike Miller <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:mbmiller%2Bl@gmail.com">mbmiller+l@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
<div class="im">On Thu, 4 Mar 2010, Carl Wilhelm Soderstrom wrote:<br>
<br>
> The computers are indeed noisy; and I suspect that a lot of the hearing<br>
> loss I've accumulated over the years is due to the constant low-level of<br>
> fan and drive noise I'm exposed to. I've actually taken to wearing<br>
> earmuffs at times. So I'd really like to make things quieter.<br>
<br>
<br>
</div>I worked on a hearing-loss project a couple of years ago and I can tell<br>
you that a lot of what people believe about loud noises and hearing loss<br>
just isn't supported by the data. Anecdote: My dad was a tail gunner and<br>
radio operator in the Korean War. He was exposed to a lot of loud noise<br>
that he thought damaged his hearing. Now he is 83 years old and has<br>
hearing problems. But my hearing also is declining. I'm 32 years younger<br>
than my dad and I did go to some really loud rock concerts, but maybe we<br>
are just genetically prone to hearing loss. It's hard to say. The<br>
research supports the genetic hypothesis more than the noise hypothesis<br>
for most cases of age-related hearing loss.<br>
<font color="#888888"><br>
Mike</font></blockquote><div><br>If you worked in a data-center with hundreds or thousands of server and blade fans howling all day, every day, I could see that kind of noise contributing to hearing loss. But the fans in your home computers are probably not contributing to hearing loss. <br>
<br>I researched this recently, and learned that your ears become fatigued and suffer hearing damage based on the intensity of the sound. Very loud music in headphones can begin to cause problems in 15 minutes or less. As the decibels decrease, the safe exposure time gets longer. I'd be surprised if the decibels produced by your computer fans are above the threshold for noise where you'd even have to worry about it - how many machines are we talking about? Have you measured the noise levels with a meter? <br>
<br>Hearing loss related to guns is a little different. My dad hunted most of his life without hearing protection, and some of his hearing loss can be contributed to firearms. It's my understanding that gun-related hearing loss leads to the characteristic of "holes" in frequencies for hearing... That said, I avoid live music performances for the sake of my hearing now. I wear hearing protection around guns as much as possible. <br>
<br>I can also vouch for the Avocent Longview being a decently effective ip-based KVM solution. I was down on them for awhile, but that's because the unit we had was defective. After an RMA/replacement, the unit has performed very well. <br>
<br>-Rob<br><br><br></div></div>