Moving to the Music: Proceed With Caution

I admit it--I’m a recovering soundaholic. My car still does occasionally go boom. As I head down the San Bernardino Freeway on weekends, the windows on my 1996 Geo Prizm do shake a bit. And the neighbors probably cringe when I pull up, with thunderous bass, at my family home in Palm Desert.

But in my defense, I grew up being urged by Quiet Riot to “Come on, feel the noise” and hearing L’Trimm rap about how they “like the cars, the cars that go ‘boom.’ ”

My addiction, though, is low-level: I mean, I’ve never altered the sound system in my car to get a better boom, and I can turn down the volume and bass any time I want, really.

Since the late 1980s, most of us, whether on the roads or in our homes, have experienced an auditory assault by the secondhand bass wafting from passing temples of boom.

The truth is that repeated exposure to extremely loud noise can harm our hearing--sometimes permanently. You might begin to hear sounds that others don’t, such as ringing in your ears, and not hear those they do, such as the sirens on emergency vehicles.

On average, busy traffic puts out between 70 and 80 decibels of sound, according to the American Speech-Language-Hearing Assn. But competition-level car stereos can put out 120 to 130 decibels, comparable to a jet plane at takeoff and within the “painful” range, the group says. It defines sounds louder than 80 decibels as “potentially hazardous.”

The inner ear’s hair cells and the hearing nerve can be damaged by continuous and repeated exposure to noise. About 28 million Americans have impaired hearing sensitivity, with 80% of those suffering irreversible loss.

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How much hearing is affected by noise depends on the length of exposure and the volume, says Bruce Garrett, chief audiologist at UCLA.

“Like radiation, the more you get, the more intense you get, the more damage you do,” he says.

Music at high volume can cause problems other than hearing impairment. Although you might find it soothing to listen to your favorite music while driving, pumping up the jam might not have the same effect on fellow motorists.

“It’s a quality-of-life issue,” says Sgt. John Pasquariello of the Los Angeles Police Department. On our roads, there’s already enough stress, so to have someone next to you--or a block away--invading your ears with loud music only compounds the problem, he says. And it’s not as if we need anything else to contribute to road rage.

I don’t know about you, but when I hear my music, I’ve got to move--and dancing as you drive is probably not a good idea. I remember seeing a man racing down the freeway so intent on getting down that his car swerved repeatedly as sound poured from the open windows. He had a child in the front passenger seat.

Besides that, sound at that level can distract boom-car drivers and those around them from what’s happening on the road. The noise can drown out the sirens of emergency vehicles, potentially creating dangerous situations.

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Although there is no national rule against blasting car stereos, some states and municipalities have enacted curbs of their own. In this state, sound from a vehicle generally should not be able to be heard from 50 feet or more away unless the sound is to request assistance, according to Section 27007 of the California Vehicle Code.

If you put a quarter on the roof of one of these boom cars, it would certainly jump, says Garrett of UCLA.

“To actually move that mass by acoustic energy takes a lot.”

Hearing damage might not be noticeable initially. But if at normal listening levels, words seem to run together, or talking and background noise are indistinguishable, you should see a doctor. An omnipresent ringing in the ears, called tinnitus, is another sign of hearing loss.

Ads for high-power speakers and all the accessories, mostly targeting young men, have long suggested that somehow having big speakers will get the girls. Come on. What guy really got a girl because of his tweeter?

And according to medical research, “feeling” the noise can lead to physiological trauma. We’re talking disorientation, chest pains and diarrhea. Now, that’s attractive.

As for my affinity for loud music, I do make a point to turn down the volume more frequently than I used to. I mean, how else would I hear the cell phone ring?

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Michelle Maltais is a broadcast producer and copy editor at The Times. She can be reached at michelle.maltais@latimes.com.