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Comment by cwales95 | Hacker News Reader

This is very interesting. I've noticed my tinnitus has seemed to be worse as of late. I exclusively use AirPods Pro. I wouldn't say I listen to loud music, but I'm wondering if the noise cancellation could have something to do with it...

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AirPods Pro noise cancellation almost definitely gave me temporary tinnitus after a few months of usage even though I never listened to music that loud. Switched to regular AirPods two years ago and the tinnitus entirely went away.

No way holy shit. Welp. God dammit I was trying so hard to figure out what caused this.

Same here, just having ANC enabled without any audio for 1-2 hours and tinnitus is clearly noticeable. For that reason I’ve discarded all AirPods Pro in my family

I have tinnitus and AirPod pros and haven’t noticed any difference. I do find that not drinking out of straws or especially camelpak style bottles with straws really minimizes it. Also, more sleep, less tinnitus

I have had tinnitus for years, and have never felt comfortable with noise cancelling headphones. Purely anecdotal, of course, and even regular headphones are uncomfortable after awhile, but active noise cancellation is unbearable for me

I wonder how much of this is causing tinnitus, vs the total silence revealing (or intensifying) tinnitus

Yeah I feel like the total silence causes me to focus on the ringing, which raises the intensity -- I think it's a mental thing.

Whenever I use noise cancelling headphones (or really any headphones), I always have something playing even at a really low volume to drown out the tinnitus.

I'm a bit odd in that I prefer total silence, though my wife needs background or white noise.

I'd rather just have the ringing in my ears than ringing PLUS something else. There's something distinctly different between ANC and true silence, and despite several attempts I've never found an ANC that proved otherwise.

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