Does Pop Music Cause Hearing Damage?

Relatively few investigations have so far reported on the hearing in pop musicians. In summary, these have shown a sensorineural hearing loss in 5%. This study was carried out on 83 professionals working with pop music. Depending upon how hearing loss is defined, we found a sensorineural loss in 13-30% of the pop musicians. Hearing losses were slight. It appears that the risk for hearing damage for the audience is small. A limit for presentation of the music at 95 dB (A) is suggested as a compromise satisfying both audiologists and audience.