John Bennett
I know of several ex studio cameramen (myself being one of them) that have suffered premature hearing loss and tinnitus in varying degrees. Winding the volume right up, usually just using the left ear, with the black STC cans may have been responsible? Even worse damage has been done to some location Sound Recordists I know, who now have to use deaf aids!
Jeff Booth
I worked in VT at TVC. I’ve had tinnitus for the last twenty or so years. It reminds me of unlocked 625 monitors.
Bill Jenkin
NHS UK reports that "…Most tinnitus is perceived as a high-pitched sound, such as hissing, whistling or buzzing…" I think because we remember what line whistle sounds like we associate it with that.
I remember walking into a studio in the 1960s and knowing which line standard we were on that day by the whistle. I wish I could do that today!.
Peter Cook
I too have resorted to hearing aid although it is my right ear which needs more amplification. That could be from one eared cans used on ‘handheld’ cameras, which often left the right ear unprotected.
Geoff Fletcher
My hearing is not brilliant these days and I too have had varying levels of tinnitus for years. Twenty years on cameras, including wearing padded cans on OB Sports on a regular basis for the last 14 of them, took its toll I guess. This was followed by working many more years on sports, air displays and the like, music – classical and pop, and LE OB shoots. plus film and TV drama shoots as a Unit Manager, Unit Production Manager, Location Manager etc., and thus being exposed to loud extraneous noise levels – eg. unsilenced aero engines used as wind machines, explosions, gunfire, jet engines, loud car engines such as drag racers at Santa Pod, pop groups with enormous speakers, orchestras at full bore, footy crowds (try the kop in full song) and so on. I think hearing problems must be pretty common in our biz. I personally know a couple of film sound recordists now having to use hearing aids. Sound Supervisors/Mixers also must have spent years listening at high levels.
Dave Plowman
I never did understand why some people ran their cans at deafening levels at all times. The default setting on my SQN was minimum level (in a reasonably quiet location), my theory being if I found a bit of the dialogue too quiet in rehearsal, I’d ‘pull’ it up. Also I didn’t really need the ability to hear a gnat fart at 100 yards via the mic like some.
I tended to use the same principle when dubbing too. For drama. Most at home are not going to be listening at deafening levels. If you do it in a quiet dubbing suite, there’s a good chance you’ll accept a wider dynamic range than is ideal.
Of course this ‘virtue’ tended to go a bit askew on the (fairly rare) music stuff I did. Pop always sounds better loud.
Nick Rodger
One of the reasons cameramen sometime need to listen at levels to make one’s ears bleed is that whilst some of us may have hearing deficiencies, all PA operators are stone deaf, and run their systems at levels to wake the dead.
Also, it occasionally helps if we can hear the director, or more usually, the assistant.
Dave Plowman
Then what’s needed is cans which exclude external noise. Something the Beeb seemed unwilling to pay for – at least at one time. This would also have helped with talkback ‘leakage’.
David Denness
I remember quite a few cameramen asking me (sound) how they could possibly hear the production gallery over the level of the group playing or the PA output.
The camera head was able (most times) to produce the level although painful to hear.
I advised them to put cotton wool in their ears, thus reducing the overall level to something approaching safe levels and permitting the relative levels to be more satisfactory. Most of the camera operators could not believe what I was telling them, but when they discovered it worked could not understand why more sound men had not given the same advice. It’s only physics after all.
Tony Grant
In my case I used ear plugs, which had been recommended to me by a member of a sound crew (sorry, can’t remember who first suggested it to me). Thus, I could wind up the talkback level to compensate for ‘ambient’ sound, and tolerate quite a high level of sound without it reaching my eardrums.
Whilst on the topic, I’m surprised no one has yet mentioned the overly high levels we had in Pres B in the early days of OGWT, leading to a supposed limit on the groups’ levels and automatic switch off if they exceeded this. I remember a man with a sound level meter pinned to a corner of the studio, and wincing at the level of sound being generated, and eventually claiming that it had exceeded the guidelines. There was supposed to be some gizmo in the sound chain to cut power to their equipment if they ignored the strictures, but I don’t recall it happening on a live broadcast, so I’m not sure if it was like orbit, only used on rehearsal.
Peter Cook
The problem of excessive sound levels may have emerged sometime after colour (plumbicon tubes) came into service. 4.5 inch IO tubes were famous for microphony which would be a good limiter.
Neil Dormand
I had a hearing test a few years ago. (Free offer from a private company). When the chap studied the results he asked whether I had worked in studios. I had a very sharp fall off at about 2k but lower frequency sensitivity was higher than average. I also have tinnitus.
Paul Kay
I suffered a hearing problem, caused by talkback etc. I was advised by a nurse at a clinic I was attending to report it to my union. I wrote to BECTU, they fought a case for me and I received compensation. Good old BECTU. I had been retired for several years when all this occurred. If you were a member of BECTU when you retired I suggest you contact them.
Mike Cotton
Mike Weaver asked the BBC Doctor about his/our right ear deafness being caused by wearing the right can off so that one was aware of what was going on in the studio to be told, "You did National Service and fired a rifle, which was close to your right ear" No compensation there!
I related this to my audiologist and had to show her how one fired a rifle. She had never heard this one and I got a cr*p NHS deaf aid. Subtitles or Bluetooth cans seem to be the best bet.
Geoff Fletcher
Many years ago when the world was young, I was deafened for two or three days when firing .303s on the range one morning at RAF Henlow. I fired at exactly the same moment as the guys on either side of me – no earplugs issued in those days. I didn’t say anything because we were flying that afternoon, but I got found out next morning when there was an CO’s parade. I was right hand marker in my column of threes and therefore marching one row ahead of the rest of the mob. I didn’t hear the WO bawling at us to "Halt!" and I carried on marching smartly across the square until a very irate Sergeant caught up with me. What an embarrassment! I got a severe bollocking from the WO of course, closely followed by another one from the MO. The deafness gradually wore off, but who knows what permanent damage may have been done.
Maurice Fleisher
I too have to use hearing aids for clarity. It bears pointing out that nearly all septuagenarians and octogenarians and earlier have severely reduced hearing if for no other reason than it is a feature of old age.
I also was at Henley with .303 pop-guns blazing away, played drums for many years, (loudly whenever possible!), went to dances and ear-splitting discos as a ‘Jack-the-lad’ (and so on). plus my ten years with the Beeb’s and other’s headphones clamped to my head – so how can anyone point the finger to any one cause? All contributory no doubt, not to mention, as in my own case, family genetics., father, sister, uncles, aunts and some cousins ‘though oddly enough not my older brother.
Hearing loss is permanent, cannot be repaired. If only today’s youngsters could be taught that. You see them with earphones perpetually stuck in their ears listening to ear-shattering music which everyone close-by can also hear, but annoyingly more like scratchy tinnitus,…..and it’s more than just a hearing danger as you see them driving cars and crossing roads with no input from the world around them to warn of impending death as they continue tapping away at their keypads with unbelievable rapidity.
Pat Heigham
The old STC cans only sat on the ears and were not particularly brilliant, anyway. I used to use Sennheiser HD25’s in my freelance work, and they were not bad at excluding extraneous noise, but not perfect.
My own tinnitus was not, I believe, caused by headset abuse, but by target rifle shooting.
At Bisley one afternoon, I caught a nearby shot badly, without ear protection, and ears began to sing. Usually this passed off after a few hours – not this time! GP sent me to a consultant in Wigmore Street, who, when I explained the possible cause, decided to check the intermediate frequencies (apparently, only certain key frequencies are usually done).
He discovered that I had a 20dB sharp dip at 6KHz, which would have been otherwise missed. From the measured difference between the two ears, he could tell which shoulder I shot from.
The effect is of a continuous background hiss – not noticeable during the day, but when I’m tired or it’s quiet at night, then it’s there.
I did wonder whether all Directors/Producers/ Re-recording Mixers should be tested, as what sounds good with EQ dialled in, might not be what is actually correct (so would the personal correction curve need to be put in to the monitors to even things out?)
John Bennett
My tinnitus and worst hearing is in my left ear and my ear man suggested that using the right ear off method with the cans may have been the reason. On cameras I did wind up the volume quite a lot to be sure of hearing what was going on! I believe the same is true for pilots.
Now the "BBC Doctor" that Mike Weaver saw was obviously not up to speed on Asymmetric Hearing Loss. It is widely known in the world of audiology, the military and shooting clubs that when firing a rifle (especially an SMLE type) it is the ear nearest the muzzle that receives most of the noise/blast. For a right handed shooter this is the LEFT ear not the right, which is also protected by being tucked in close to the rifle.
Tony Crake
Back in those old 1950s I went to a Summer Cadet Army Camp somewhere in the depths of rural Lancashire
We were to do (amongst other things) ‘Night Firing’ .. Flares and Tracer Bullets.. not with LE .303 but Bren Guns!
Most exciting … but none of us could hear much for the rest of the week after letting off a full mag.
Dave Plowman
I must admit most of my similar aged pals who didn’t work in TV are just as deaf as I am.
What’s most annoying with my hearing is not the frequency response (which is still not bad for my age) but hearing distortion where it doesn’t exist. Try explaining that one to your doctor.
Doug Prior
I seem to remember being told early on that women make the best RT operators, no doubt a function of frequency, diction etc, but now I have a big led screen I find female con announcers almost unintelligible, and on prerecorded bits on programmes like “Winterwatch” Michaela Strachen disappears although she is fine on the studio live bits.
I blame too much L.E. and Mark Nicoll`s PA.
Mike Giles
Some sports presenters notoriously wanted enormous levels in their deaf-aids and Des Lynam and Steve Rider in particular were clearly hard of hearing in their deaf-aid ears.
It can be easily demonstrated that listening via only one ear encourages an even greater level to that ear than when listening on both ears, so it’s a double whammy and I got both of them to try using deaf-aids in both ears, but neither could take to it, even though they were very aware of the harm already inflicted and agreed that they could wind the wick down when using two. They wanted to retain the DAC path through an uncluttered ear to hear studio guests and the FM.
Mike Cotton
A Contribution to my deafness
(Click on the picture below to see larger version:
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Salmon fishing on the River Wye at Llandogo.
(We never caught any fish in the Wye except “elvers” making their way upstream to the land of their parents. Any one with even a sieve and a torch could catch them as they swam close to the river bank at night. Great fried alive freshly caught. It was quite an industry for the locals.)
I was told not to hold the Sten gun by the magazine and to keep my fingers well away from the eject mechanism which was a finger remover.
We also had access to the 25 yard indoor .22 range and the sight of schoolboys on bikes with Lee Enfield .303 rifles slung over their shoulders and full ammunition pouches en route through the town to the open range would cause modern police to have a fit. The local bobby had no chance of catching them!.
A boarding friend of mine scored a bull’s eye on the cricket sight screen at a range of about a mile. The groundsman was perplexed when he came to paint it.
We had no accidents although the PTI/CSM killed his wife with a shotgun.
Any coincidence with the film "If" was nothing to do with us.
The headmaster was very strict but was unaware of all this , a contemporary, Victor Spinetti, called him a "Muscular Christian" in his autobiography. He wasn’t universally liked but he did drag the school out of its war time problems and began the start of the fine institution it is today, having just celebrated 400 years of existence.
Geoff Fletcher
Brens were very accurate although they tended to "walk" away from you on their bipods if not held properly.
Stens were ‘orrible contraptions – finger choppers. Cheap and not so cheerful!
Another fun on the range memory was when one hapless character tried to fire his Bren left handed and somehow got a very hot brass cartridge case ejected down his sleeve. Forgetting about range discipline, he leapt upright pawing away at his tunic trying to get the thing out, and was promptly swatted back down prone again by the instantly irate RAF Regiment Flt Sgt in charge while that worthy frantically bawled out to the rest of us to "Cease Fire!" The offender got no sympathy from us – the general opinion being "What a p*ll*ck!"
