[Loquah]

Inside your ears are some muscles that are used to protect the inner-ear from damage. They do this by contracting to distance the little bones from the ear drum at one end and the inner ear at the other end. The reflex normally occurs in reaction to loud sounds. It also happens when you are talking so that you don't deafen yourself. 

 
On 2 occassions now I've managed to activate this reflex by association and it's happened when I've been critically listening to headphones for too long.
 
The first time it happened was just after I bought my Ultrasone HFI-680 headphones. This time, it was my Shure SE535 Limited Edition IEMs.
 
All I can work out is that somehow I've stressed and fatigued my ears by listening too closely to the music and the individual sounds and placement of those sounds. My ears have "learned" that when I use these headphones/earphones (currently the 535s) that it's difficult and fatiguing. Now, when I put these phones on (even for casual listening), I'm finding my ears react and contract as if the sound coming from the phones is harsh, loud and nasty - very frustrating when I'm trying to enjoy the wonderful sounds coming from some great sounding phones.
 
Has anyone else experienced this? What happened? How did it happen for you?

 

[hdufour]

I ran into a similar situation after being in a machine room with a loud/bad squeaking belt on an air compressor - damn thing hurt my ears.  After that, any sound seemed to be extremely loud, like my ears were scared to hear anything.  Even at crazy low volumes, everything hurt and seemed to cause my head to ring.  Heck, I had to wear earplugs in the car cause the road noise drove me crazy.  To top it all off, I had just gotten my HD650's and that was no good at all.....anyway, long story short here's what I did to get my ears back on straight.....
 
First got my cans on my head with nothing playing.  Just sat there for a while like that (training my ears that nothing would hurt them even if something was on them).
 
Ran some extremely low volume pink noise for a few hours to remind them what even sound was like....eventually and very slowly I was able to turn it up to "normal" levels, but honestly it took me a few weeks to get back there.  Obviously I had some tunes here and there, but a vast majority I did was burn-in my ears again.  

  I would go the point of being uncomfortable and go a minute longer....over time the discomfort went away.
 
The other thing I did was stop trying to listen critically to my music, and just enjoy it.  It made a difference over time....relax!  Sometimes we can just make our body parts act strange because we think about the problem too much...
 
ymmv and hope your ears start acting normal again...

 

[Loquah]

Quote:

I ran into a similar situation after being in a machine room with a loud/bad squeaking belt on an air compressor - damn thing hurt my ears.  After that, any sound seemed to be extremely loud, like my ears were scared to hear anything.  Even at crazy low volumes, everything hurt and seemed to cause my head to ring.  Heck, I had to wear earplugs in the car cause the road noise drove me crazy.  To top it all off, I had just gotten my HD650's and that was no good at all.....anyway, long story short here's what I did to get my ears back on straight.....
 
First got my cans on my head with nothing playing.  Just sat there for a while like that (training my ears that nothing would hurt them even if something was on them).
 
Ran some extremely low volume pink noise for a few hours to remind them what even sound was like....eventually and very slowly I was able to turn it up to "normal" levels, but honestly it took me a few weeks to get back there.  Obviously I had some tunes here and there, but a vast majority I did was burn-in my ears again.  

  I would go the point of being uncomfortable and go a minute longer....over time the discomfort went away.
 
The other thing I did was stop trying to listen critically to my music, and just enjoy it.  It made a difference over time....relax!  Sometimes we can just make our body parts act strange because we think about the problem too much...
 
ymmv and hope your ears start acting normal again...

Great technique for re-adjusting to sound! Thanks, hdufour!
 
I completely agree about the non-critical listening. After all, it's about the music in the end, not the headphones producing the music.
 

 

[hdufour]

I can't claim credit for it....well, I could 

 
Research hyperacusis...its a severe form of tinnits and it is treated with special "hearing aids" of sorts that are really just pink noise generators....over a prolonged time they help the sufferer recover from ear trauma, so i figured what could I lose...
 
I've found that stressing out listening to something takes all the fun out of it.  Done that too many times in other hobbies (stressing out) and they lose their enjoyment, so I'm taking this one in a relaxed way.  I think i also notice more differences when listening casually....now if I'm mastering/mixing then sure...stress, but thats work