Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Hearing loss

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Posted by Richard Hamilton (Member # 321) on 11-03-2011, 01:00 PM:

Has anyone experienced hearing loss from working in the booth? I have recently lost most of my hearing in my left ear. I have a doctors appt next week. I figured 27 years working in the booth and large format installs may have contributed to it. Standing on the operators side with my left ear towards the machine

Can anyone take a spl reading next to a projector? Both 35,70MM and ambient noise would be appreciated. Thanks in advance.

Rick

Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 11-03-2011, 11:44 PM:

That is mostly dependent upon the acoustics of the booth. I always design my booth with mandatory acoustic drop ceiling and carpet and they run VERY quiet. Other booths with bare cement or tile floor and often no ceiling except the roof deck are often quite hard on the ears. Working long shifts in them can very well cause hearing loss. Next time I am in some film booths I'll try and remember to take an SPL meter with me.

Posted by Jim Henk (Member # 3628) on 11-03-2011, 11:55 PM:

Um, before you give up on your hearing, consider that it might also be wax buildup. And before you laugh, it happens. And it sounds and feels a lot like hearing loss. Your ENT will find out for sure.

Be well.

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 11-04-2011, 12:20 AM:

I can attest to the above. When I was about 25, I noticed that my one ear started to sound very "muffled" and I attributed it at first to too much rock'n'roll at top volume. I went to the dr. and he pulled out a hunk of wax about the size of a marble from EACH of my ears. I was flabbergasted at how much better I could hear after that. So yeah, I would get that checked for sure.

Posted by Randy Stankey (Member # 64) on 11-04-2011, 07:54 AM:

quote: Richard Hamilton
Can anyone take a spl reading next to a projector? Both 35,70MM and ambient noise would be appreciated. Thanks in advance.

Years ago, when I worked at Tinseltown 17, I took some SPL readings in the booth.

In the middle of the booth the SPL was about 70 dB-A when all 17 projectors were running. If you stood right near the projector while it was running, the SPL was about 85 dB-A.

It is my understanding that 85 dB is the limit set by OSHA.
Workers may be exposed to SPLs up to 85 dB for eight hours per day. If the sound levels average any more than that, or if the worker is exposed for longer than that, the employer is required to provide hearing protection and/or take noise abatement measures, either sound proofing the walls or cordoning off areas with high sound levels.

So, the way I see it, the noise levels in a projection booth are right at the OSHA limit. Brad's procedure of using acoustic tiles and carpet on the floor is a good idea to make extra sure your booth doesn't get pinched by the feds.

Posted by Robert D Hall (Member # 5674) on 11-04-2011, 08:20 AM:

I just got a reading of 81.5db at 3 feet from a 35mm simplex

Posted by Monte L Fullmer (Member # 2797) on 11-04-2011, 02:20 PM:

I used to tend a booth that had no ceiling tiles, ceiling was a good 12 ft high, all hard wall painted surfaces, vinyl floor tile with 8 Simplex Milleniums going crazy.

In the middle of the booth, my SPL readings were close to 90dB - I absolutely hated that booth due to the racket where I would only go up there to lace up then leave.

Wonder what the SPL readings are now since they went full digital and I'm no longer with that company - prob sounds like a wind factory with the 8 NEC units with all the fans needed to cool the things...

Posted by Robert E. Allen (Member # 1351) on 11-04-2011, 02:27 PM:

I have lost some hearing in both ears mostly in the higher ranges. The VA issued me hearing aids for both ears. The audiologist attributed the loss to two things: many years in the booth and many years as a radio announcer wearing headsets. If anyone works a booth today and actually stays in the booth it might not be a bad idea to use ear plugs after you get things going.

Hey Monte! Am I missing something? I thought "lace up" was a British term. In all my years in the booth it was called "thread".

Posted by Monte L Fullmer (Member # 2797) on 11-04-2011, 02:38 PM:

Lol ... picked that term up from a fellow operator in our local union, many moons ago who indeed did come from England, and it kinda stuck with me since.

Posted by Scott Norwood (Member # 30) on 11-05-2011, 10:56 AM:

If you want a quiet booth, get Norelco AA-IIs. These are the quietest film projectors that I have worked with. The ones without doors (Kinoton, Cinemeccanica, and turret-model Simplexes/Centurys) seem to be the loudest. Given the choice, I would always prefer a projector with an enclosed mechanism for this reason. Lamp exhaust volume seems to vary from booth to booth. Having the rectifiers in a separate room adjacent to the booth can also help reduce noise level.

Carpet in the booth can also help, although there is some debate as to whether it is a good idea for other reasons (can collect dust/harder to clean than tile).

Posted by Mike Heenan (Member # 392) on 11-05-2011, 03:18 PM:

I have hearing loss. It's been there my whole life and has gradually gone down over the years. I wear a hearing aid in my left ear and I'm deaf in my right. It's tough to tell whether working in the booth the last 10 years affected me or not. I'm sure it did to some degree, but I usually shut my aid off when the shows were running (we only had two screens so it wasn't super busy like a multiplex).

Posted by Jim Bedford (Member # 4) on 11-07-2011, 09:28 AM:

Yep, mine's going too. But I blame 25 years of the likes of Jethro Tull, Steve Miller Band, The Who, Led Zeppelin, Stones, etc. concerts and especially the Sony Walkman more than booth noise. But it's likely cumulative and both booth noise and movie volume are contributing factors. I think that the Walkman for 20 years while skiing and normal aging are the primary culprits.

Posted by Doug Thompson (Member # 6546) on 11-08-2011, 07:32 PM:

I can attest to what Scott Norwood says about AA-IIs. But the ones I used to run chattered horribly on green prints. (We didn't have FilmGuard then.) In fact, we would move such a print to the DP-75s lest they be ruined in several days running otherwise.

The Cinemeccanica V-4s at another theatre were very noisy when I started there, but after tearing down, cleaning and lubrication and reassembly, they were amazingly quiet. I had to do this about every 3 months or so to keep them quiet.

Hearing was still good enough to do 5 years or so as a mastering engineer at a recording studio. I've been using plugs my construction job, but age seems to be causing the high end to droop.

Doug

Posted by Jim Henk (Member # 3628) on 11-11-2011, 07:41 PM:

So Richard, how did the appointment go?

Posted by Randy Stankey (Member # 64) on 11-11-2011, 08:17 PM:

quote: Jim Bedford
Yep, mine's going too. But I blame 25 years of the likes of Jethro Tull, Steve Miller Band, The Who, Led Zeppelin, Stones, etc. concerts and especially the Sony Walkman more than booth noise.

Almost the same story here but add in some occasional gunfire to boot.

When I was younger, I went hunting and shooting with my father a lot. Back in those days, men didn't wear hearing protection. God help you if he even caught you putting your fingers in your ears!

Then, just two summers ago, I was at the range practicing silhouette shooting with my 10/22. I had just emptied my magazine and was putting my rifle in the rack when the guy to my right put up his hand and called to clear the firing line. Thinking the range was cold, I took off my hearing protector when this asshole in the stall right on my left let loose with a shot from an 8mm Mauser. Of course, he was shooting hot loads. The concussion nearly knocked me over.

The shot was so loud it hurt. It hurt so bad I actually screamed. My ear throbbed for about a week after that. I can still hear in my left ear but not as well as I used to.

Why do dickheads like that always have to get in "just one more shot" when somebody calls the line clear?
Why do dickheads who have to get in one more shot always seem to be shooting maximum loads?
What kind of dickhead shoots max loads out of a vintage gun in the first place?

Okay, maybe I should have checked that all the guns were in the rack before taking off my earmuffs but that guy was a dickhead in the first place. That really hurt!

I wanted to punch him out but it's not wise to start a fight on the rifle range. Everybody there has guns!

Posted by Paul Mayer (Member # 355) on 11-11-2011, 09:23 PM:

Me too - lost quite a bit of my hearing, especially in my left ear due to an intercom screw up while flying back in the mid-1980s.

When I first started flying and working at airports in the mid-1970s I never wore hearing protection. Like Randy mentioned above, it was a macho thing - men never wore such wimpy things. Later I started flying for a living giving air tours over the Grand Canyon. In those days the pilot also did the tour narration, shouting over the noise to the passengers. Company rules forbid pilots from wearing headsets since the passengers would feel they couldn't ask questions if the pilot had a headset on. By the late-1980s the general attitude towards hearing protection became more accepting - I wore headsets and bought my own pair for personal flying from about 1987 on.

During my flying years I also worked as a stagehand on the Las Vegas Strip, including lots of jobs as a sound mixer. Again, more exposure to very high SPLs, and again without hearing protection. By the mid-1990s I had given up both being a stagehand and a pilot and so exposure to high SPLs went way down, but wasn't eliminated. But the damage had already been done.

During the last year-and-a-half I've been installing digital projectors - mostly Sony 320s at Regal sites, but also lots of NECs and occasionally Barcos and Christies. The Sony 320 was easily the loudest of all the digital machines. I used to have to walk well away from those machines whenever I needed to be on a cell phone - just simply couldn't hear otherwise. Never wore hearing protection on any of those jobs.

Working on getting back to SoCal and a new job now. I'll definitely be paying more attention to what's left of my hearing from here on out.

Posted by Gerard S. Cohen (Member # 994) on 11-14-2011, 03:54 PM:

I discovered when in military service that I lost the ability to hear on my right ear, probably as early as basic training
on the firing range. We shot 30.06 ball ammo from Garand rifles,and in addition to the noise of the cartridge explosion, the bolt came back with a ringing clang with each shot, and shot forward loading the next cartridge.

That produced a painful numbness. We had no protection for our ears, but a couple of country boys stuffed cotton in there ears
and Kotex napkins under their jackets to reduce the recoil kick.

Posted by John T. Hendrickson, Jr (Member # 849) on 11-24-2011, 07:50 PM:

I know I've experienced some loss. If I'm in the booth with equipment running nearby and someone talks to me, I have to move closer to them to pick up what they are saying.

Don't have any problem when there is no background noise.

At the insistance of my wife, I recently took a hearing test. The gal who did the test said:"You have a problem hearing women's voices." To which I replied: "Why is that a problem?" [Smile]

Posted by Richard Hamilton (Member # 321) on 12-21-2011, 05:58 AM:

I have a hearing test this morning. I have been dealing with disability/social security. My only training has been in sound. Syn-Aud-Con, Dolby and Peavey. I've run sound for a few local bands and set up more theater sound systems than I can remember. The projector work is easy, but unfortunately everything is digital now and I was working in the large format industry as film was fading away. The local theater has the tech I trained about 20 years ago and they don't have any work for me (all 50 screens are digital and they have an IMAX tech who comes in to service the 15/70). Anyway, it sucks always saying "what?" and getting in close and turning my head just to have a conversation. The only person I can hear is my ex, but thats because we're always yelling [fu]