How loud is too loud?

@n80

As I mentioned in that other "are you hearing?" thread, I'm currently undergoing TRT therapy.  It's actually for hyperacusis, but it's using the white noise generators, and it's basically a modified form of TRT for hyperacusis.

The effect on my Tinnitus has been fascinating.  Numerous times my T has seemed to be very quiet upon taking off the generators (e.g. at night to sleep).  In fact, one night a couple weeks ago I took them off and my Tinnitus was completely gone!   As in, I listened for it and I heard complete silence!  This happened once to me about maybe 13 years ago, but not since.  First time I've heard silence like that  - where I actually can not hear any ringing even if I try - for decades.  That was wild.

Of course it came back over time.  But pretty neat nonetheless.  Once the brain is trained to ignore something, that can be pretty powerful.

I haven’t played my music really loud for many years now. (Learned the hard way not to expose myself to loud sound for long periods - Tinnitus etc).

A musician pal who played in the same crazy-loud band with me for years, was over at my place a few weeks ago. He continued to play music, while I abandoned live gigging in the 90’s. I don’t know if perhaps he’s lost some hearing, but when I demoed my system he kept asking me to crank it up more and more, to the point it would have me begging for mercy if I were listening in the same room (I actually was down the hall). I worried for my speaker drivers.   He was blown away by the system. 

I have another audiophile friend who loves to turn up his system to punishing gut-slamming levels sometimes, especially for rock. Sometimes I wish I could still do that, but my cautious/rational side, along with sensitive hearing, keeps me from going that nuts.