Generally it is the hair receptor cells inside the inner ear that bend to receive sound, are bent or broken. This causes false sensation of sound.
Hearing protection wasn’t issued in my day, there was no option. Some of us fluffed up the filters from our used cigs to create ear plugs that were highly ineffective but better than nothing.
Well I bought the same set of headphones as the OP linked in this thread yesterday and got them today. I had heard of them but didn't know a thing about how they worked or how effective they may be. This particular set is on the small side but it's workable for me. I have a big old noggin, I can't keep a hat on in the wind to save my life.
I also have a case of tinnitus to point of hearing ringing and birds and bugs chirping constantly. Anyway, these work far better that the Apple AirPod Pro's I have. They work alright but won't maintain seal and I have to run the volume very high which isn't optimal. With the Airpods I generally have the volume on my Mac at 3 notches down from max and can be pegged at max on some media. Youtube is all over the map with volume level, it just depends. Slightly less on my iPhone but they don't fit my ears well. Also have the same problem with some bluetooth ear pro buds I bought to use at the range in the summer time. Can't get a seal with them either so I guess I have jacked up ears too. lol
With these bone conduction head phones I'm listening to music right now at 3 notches from the bottom. Huge difference! Now I'm going to find an audiologist and look into bone conduction hearing aids. They have those too!
Thanks @p238shooter for posting this!
I also have a case of tinnitus to point of hearing ringing and birds and bugs chirping constantly. Anyway, these work far better that the Apple AirPod Pro's I have. They work alright but won't maintain seal and I have to run the volume very high which isn't optimal. With the Airpods I generally have the volume on my Mac at 3 notches down from max and can be pegged at max on some media. Youtube is all over the map with volume level, it just depends. Slightly less on my iPhone but they don't fit my ears well. Also have the same problem with some bluetooth ear pro buds I bought to use at the range in the summer time. Can't get a seal with them either so I guess I have jacked up ears too. lol
With these bone conduction head phones I'm listening to music right now at 3 notches from the bottom. Huge difference! Now I'm going to find an audiologist and look into bone conduction hearing aids. They have those too!
Thanks @p238shooter for posting this!
Yeppers...
...Basic Training in early 1966 involved using M-14's at the range with no ear protection. Also later, some firing of M-14's in other training, but not so much as Basic. My only other issue with hearing was with listening to Morse code via headphones, but I learned early on to not fully cover my ears for listening, but place the ear pieces just forward of my ears.
I still have some tinnitus, but I can generally just ignore it. It's there, but it isn't really loud.
mine gets louder every time I read this thread 
Yep. According to NIH (National Institutes of Health): "Although we hear tinnitus in our ears, its source is really in the networks of brain cells (what scientists call neural circuits) that make sense of the sounds our ears hear. A way to think about tinnitus is that it often begins in the ear, but it continues in the brain.
Scientists still haven’t agreed upon what happens in the brain to create the illusion of sound when there is none. Some think that tinnitus is similar to chronic pain syndrome, in which the pain persists even after a wound or broken bone has healed.
Tinnitus could be the result of the brain’s neural circuits trying to adapt to the loss of sensory hair cells by turning up the sensitivity to sound. This would explain why some people with tinnitus are oversensitive to loud noise.
Tinnitus also could be the result of neural circuits thrown out of balance when damage in the inner ear changes signaling activity in the auditory cortex, the part of the brain that processes sound. Or it could be the result of abnormal interactions between neural circuits. The neural circuits involved in hearing aren’t solely dedicated to processing sound. They also communicate with other parts of the brain, such as the limbic region, which regulates mood and emotion."
I can hear it way over heremine gets louder every time I read this thread
