# Soft ear ringing in a very quiet soundproof room



## beamthegreat

Is this normal? I dont listen to very loud music but everytime I enter a sound proof room (I play drum kits) and I hear a very soft ear ringing in my ear. I dont usually notice its there but its there. Does anyone experience this problem or is it totally normal? thanks.


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## EnOYiN

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *beamthegreat* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_Is this normal? I dont listen to very loud music but everytime I enter a sound proof room (I play drum kits) and I hear a very soft ear ringing in my ear. I dont usually notice its there but its there. Does anyone experience this problem or is it totally normal? thanks._

 

That's normal. I can't remember how this works exactly anymore, but it's something like this: Your brain/ ears are used to sound. Since it's hardly ever completely quiet you're not used to complete silence. Your brain/ ears make up for the lack of sound which is perceived as a slight ringing. The same effect can be heard in anechoic chambers. Like I said I don't know exactly how this works, but there's a good chance someone else around here knows a bit more about it.


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## MrGreen

IIRC there was a study done on this (for research into tinnitus) and something ludicrously high (>90% i think) of people reported sound in a silent room.

 Out of interest, do you hear the same sound at night with ears against pillows or with isolation headphones on?


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## DaveBSC

Most people who enter an anechoic chamber will experience ringing in their ears. We are accustomed to an ambient noise level of 30dB+, and when you enter a really quiet space you can notice that sort of thing. Have your hearing tested if you are concerned about it. And of course always be safe and wear protection in loud environments.


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## etiolate

it's funny you mention this, because i've recently noticed this myself when my room is really quiet... i just bought a new dac and i'm worried i might've gone overkill on my ears while testing it out. 
	

	
	
		
		

		
			





 lol


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## googleborg

yes it's normal, total and utter silence is almost painful, feels like my ears are being sucked out haha.


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## wantmyf1

I've noticed it as well but it's not a concern. If you only hear it in a dead quiet area it's normal. When/if you start to hear it during your daily activites you should definitely get it checked out then.


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## salannelson

This is off audacity's manual. i remember reading it a while back...

  Quote:


 Have you heard of those silent rooms, where they test speakers and microphones ? They're great if you don't happen to be inside of one. After a few minutes you hear the blood in your ears roar like an ocean. You hear only your inner voice when you speak. The room swallows almost everything else. Most people can't stand being in a room like this for more than 10−15 minutes. I am told that this is very different to wearing ear plugs. Those only attenuate sound from the outside. A silent room kills it completely. This room is horrible to listen to, because it basically features no room reverberation, i.e. it doesn't reflect anything at all. It doesn't reveal any information about its size or surface composition. You may be surprised to know that many vocals are actually recorded in similar environments. Vocal booths are little rooms, in which the walls reflect sound as little as possible. During mixing, digital reverbs are used to create a virtual space. 
 

i hope that helps


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## googleborg

ok now i'm scared.


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## mattcalf

I'm scarily intrigued.


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## th3bl0b

Yeah, this is totally normal. As many people have said, this is your brain trying to make up for the lack of sound in the room.


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## Blue Monday

My uncle knows a guy who does all sorts of research on the ear at KU medical center (my uncle is a doctor there) and one time I got to follow him around and see what he does. I remember stepping into the sound proof room and as soon as the door shut it there was this odd pressure on my ears. He said that it's normal to hear ringing in a very quiet environment. They're still trying to figure out exactly what causes it.


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## mabus627

As a few have said, it's normal. Your brain is used to the constant stream of information. When that stream disappears, your brain compensates by making it own noise. It's comparable to when you close your eyes, you see pictures, shapes, words, etc. This is because your brain is able to create a set of information to be processed, and perceived. Another thing that come of this, strangely, is your brain forcing other senses to comply with each other, like when you spin in circles for a few minutes. Your brain makes the room seemingly "spin" because the balance regions in your ears are spinning.


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## Jema

So, just to clarify - you mean this ringing is not simply a very low level of tinnitus that most people could have, but doesn't notice unless in extremely quiet surroundings? Is it actually a fact that the brain does this sound as a compensation for lack of stimuli?
   
  If there are any articles or tests on this, I would love to learn more about it.


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## xnor

Quote: 





jema said:


> So, just to clarify - you mean this ringing is not simply a very low level of tinnitus that most people could have, but doesn't notice unless in extremely quiet surroundings? Is it actually a fact that the brain does this sound as a compensation for lack of stimuli?
> 
> If there are any articles or tests on this, I would love to learn more about it.


 

 Tinnitus _is_ a sound your brain creates too. It's level can be so low that you can only hear it in very silent rooms.
  And of course, if suddenly all you can hear is this ringing and therefore concentrate on it ...


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## BobSaysHi

Quote: 





xnor said:


> Tinnitus _is_ a sound your brain creates too. It's level can be so low that you can only hear it in very silent rooms.
> And of course, if suddenly all you can hear is this ringing and therefore concentrate on it ...


 


  I think I have tinnitus, but after reading this thread I'm not sure. My room is 100% silent at night and I hear ringing. When I plug my ears the ringing continues. I used to listen to insane volume levels (it was a result of your typical metal MOAR LOUDER, and a lack of knowledge on hearing loss). My hearing is sill really detailed, so I'm not sure if this is the case.


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## xnor

Same here bob, but mine was triggered by a cold. Most of the time I don't even notice it, just in very quiet places. Doc said ignore it, I'm fine with that heh.
  Afaik it is tinnitus and produced by the brain for reasons unknown. It's always there but you don't notice it at everyday work.
   
  Oh by the way, to high sensitivity (e.g. as a result of using ear plugs to fall asleep etc.) can be the cause too.


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## Jema

Well, yes - tinnitus is a brain-induced symptom of a condition, and can arise from various things. I should have specified that I was referring to tinnitus as a result of noise-induced hearing loss, when there is damage to the stereocilia, the hair cells that ultimately transform the physical waves of sound into signals to the brain.
   
  So what I was wondering is, if a person with absolutely no hearing loss or other damage to the outer or inner ear was to be deprived of outer audio stimuli, would the brain then create tinnitus as some sort of response to this? Or does everybody have a low level of tinnitus that is masked by everyday sounds?
   
  Quote:


> Tinnitus _is_ a sound your brain creates too. It's level can be so low that you can only hear it in very silent rooms.  And of course, if suddenly all you can hear is this ringing and therefore concentrate on it ...


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## RPGWiZaRD

Well I also notice this slightly in VERY silent rooms but it doesn't sound like tinnitus as I've been quite careful with volume but I think it's more what explained that the brain is accustomised to hearing some noise and tries making up for it. I'm a comp hardware nerd and I've slept next to my comp with it running day and night for MAAAANY years (10~12 years maybe) so my ears rarely get a completely silent environment and I think this is the reason I might "think" I'm hearing something in a silent room, yea it's more like "imaginary" noise than actual noise in my case as it depends how much I focus on it etc and can't or can barely notice it at all if I don't focus on trying to hear anything.


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## Nachash

bobsayshi said:


> I think I have tinnitus, but after reading this thread I'm not sure. My room is 100% silent at night and I hear ringing. When I plug my ears the ringing continues. I used to listen to insane volume levels (it was a result of your typical metal MOAR LOUDER, and a lack of knowledge on hearing loss). My hearing is sill really detailed, so I'm not sure if this is the case.




You can have tinnitus even without any hearing loss.


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## SP Wild

Thank goodness for this thread!  Before joining head-fi, I always noticed that when it was quite, at times I registered a ringing noise, but thought nothing of it.
   
  Then I joined head-fi and came across this word "tinnitus" for which I paid no attention to as I had no idea what it meant and the term sounded like defective hearing for which I never suspected that I had...then I read about hearing ringing in silence and this was the meaning of tinnitus...
   
  Then I heard this ringing more, sometimes very loudly, more than usual...even though my listening habits have always been the same.  Still the paranoia persists and I was ready to accept that I have a "tinnitus".
   
  I'm pretty sure tonight I will be cured, and these noises won't bother me the slightest no more.  Thank goodness for that.


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## xnor




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## maverickronin

Some tinnitus is thought to come from the nerve cells in your inner ear going into oscillation and not just noise that your brain is making up itself.


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## ThEadventurer

Your brain sends sensory signals, it makes its own sounds since you are not used to silence, don't worry, its normal, if you dont have a history of tinnitus.


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## dlwilladsen

+1 tinnitus ... probably caused by loud, annoying music played in every eating establishment.


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## chewy4

Ha, I don't think that there are many resaurants playing music at tinnitus inducing levels.
   
  My tinnitus, while the root cause is very likely one too many ekoostik Hookah concerts(some of which I would have been considered legally deaf the night of), was triggered by the drug tramadol. There's a lot of weird ways it can come to surface, it's not really an all that well understood condition.


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## anetode

Tinnitus in quiet environments occurs because of the adjustment of the neural feedback loop responsible for "gain", sensitivity of the hair cells. These cells produce noise, i.e. electrical impulses, all the time, however the brain dynamically adjusts sensitivity to filter them out. It's analogous to being in a really dark room: once your eyes adjust to the darkness, everything appears kind of grainy because you're asking so much of your rod cells that you "tune-in" to the noise floor.
   
  It's difficult to accept the notion of your mind-body mechanism being subject to such simple limitations, not just on a creeped-out level but so much so that during sensory deprivation your brain eventually chooses to create its own subjective reality.


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## Ervin Tartaraj

Hey man , i come from the future , cus ive als heard about tinnitus like a few weeks ago ... and then i realized that every time i go to sleep if i notice carefully or sometimes not .. i hear this ringing sound , when it's quiet though ... and ive had it since a loooong time ago iirc ... and was worried if i had tinnitus recently since i heard of it ... i thought everyone had that .... if it is tinnitus i could live with it , but what worries me though is if it can actually get worse ... and i wanna ask u what has happened to you after all these years ; is it still the same or has it gotten worse? :/


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## 441879

When I'm in a very quiet room I hear ringing, but it's very high pitched (well north of 10 kHz). When I've been exposed to extremely loud noises (concert, diesel power plants, etc) I've heard ringing but at much lower frequency (say 5000 Hz). My assumption (based on no research) was the lower frequency was tinnitus and the really high frequency notice is the noise floor of what I could hear. The HF ringing is barely perceptible in a quiet room but quite noticeable in a anechoic chamber. When I last had my hearing tested (I think they went to 16khz but I could be wrong) the ringing was a little lower pitched than the test tone.


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## lawlbear

Ha thats pretty neat, never been in a soundproof room.


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## rikk009

Never been in a soundproof room so can't say but right now I am wearing foam earplugs and I hear ringing. Is this tinnitus?


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## Ancipital

Yes, simply. Lack of input causes it, to simplify (sometimes it's a mechanical thing, sometimes it's in the brain- similar things happen with long-term sight loss, often).


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## old tech

beamthegreat said:


> Is this normal? I dont listen to very loud music but everytime I enter a sound proof room (I play drum kits) and I hear a very soft ear ringing in my ear. I dont usually notice its there but its there. Does anyone experience this problem or is it totally normal? thanks.


 
 What you are hearing is your brain's noise floor.
  
 It is the same with vision in a totally dark room, or closing your eyes at night - the star like patterns you see is also your brain's white noise.


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## edstrelow

I spent my years as a graduate student with access to scientific grade sound proof rooms and would  hear noises when I went in.  However it was not ringing, rather you could hear things like the sound of your own pulse.  Too much white noise or ringing could indeed be tinnitus.


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