[moomies]

Pete Townshend Warns iPod Users
Jan 4, 12:42 PM EST

The Associated Press
LONDON -- Pete Townshend has warned iPod users they may face hearing problems if they don't turn down the volume.
Townshend, guitarist in '60s rock band The Who, said his hearing has been irreversibly damaged by years of using studio headphones and he must now take 36-hour breaks between recording sessions.
"Hearing loss is a terrible thing because it cannot be repaired," he said on his Web site. "If you use an iPod or anything like it, or your child uses one, you MAY be OK. ... But my intuition tells me there is terrible trouble ahead."
The Who were famous for their earsplitting live performances, but Townshend, 60, said his problem was caused by using earphones in the recording studio.
"I have unwittingly helped to invent and refine a type of music that makes its principal components deaf," he said.
Referring to the increasingly popular practice of downloading music from the Internet, Townshend said: "The downside may be that on our computers — for privacy, for respect to family and co-workers, and for convenience — we use earphones at almost every stage of interaction with sound."


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http://music.msn.com/music/article.a...11176&GT1=7538

I don't think it's just specifically iPods that might be harmful, it could be any number of things nowadays e.g. loud movie theatre audio, concerts, cell phone with high volume etc. But it's true that you can't get back your hearing once you lose it for whatever reason so be careful everybody!