We have an EU db limit for wired headphones, but nothing for wireless... Apple needs to change this!

[scaramoosh]

I find it shocking that the limit only applies to wired headphones, not even Apple's wireless headphones are limited. I know it's probably a problem as it's headphone specific, but they really need to find a solution and this limit needs to come into force for all Wireless headphones. I'm not saying you cannot turn it off, but parents need the ability to limit it for their kids.

People get really angry at this, however children do not think about their future as they think they're invincible. I don't consider myself a stupid person, intact I got great grades at school; I have tinnitus however and it's because I was a careless child who played his music full blast. It was cool back then, it's not cool now and it is ruining my life and getting worse... so I really want the ability to have a db limit on wireless headphones like wired.

This is especially needed since Apple got rid of the headphone jack.

 

[itsmilo]

Cant you set the limit in the settings somewhere?

 

[Shirasaki]

You can enforce volume limit through settings and set the level way below EU recommended limit. You can even put a restriction on it, just like what I do now (half of the regular full volume).

 

[Newtons Apple]

Not sure the settings work for all BT headphones. The volume setting would be only for wired.

 

[Dave245]

I don't see the point in this, people are free to set the volume limit to as high or as low as they want.

 

[Applejuiced]

I don't see the point in this, people are free to set the volume limit to as high or as low as they want.

Don't you know, we need the government to tell us what to do and how to do it with everything in our lives nowadays. Instead of common sense we now have government overreaching and babysitting.
We even have to put labels on all coffee cups that the content could be very hot

 

[Dave245]

Don't you know, we need the government to tell us what to do and how to do it with everything in our lives nowadays. Instead of common sense we now have government overreaching and babysitting.
We even have to put labels on all coffee cups that the content could be very hot

This!! Yea years ago it was called common sense.

 

[Applejuiced]

This!! Yea years ago it was called common sense.

Tell me about it.
Complete nonsense.
Now people sue McDonalds for eating too much of their food and getting fat.
And sue Starbucks/coffee shops for accidentally spilling hot coffee on themselves and getting burned.
And they go to court and are awarded millions in lawsuits for their own stupidity/actions.
I guess companies or the government should have told them not to do it

 

[Reno Raines]

Tell me about it.
Complete nonsense.
Now people sue McDonalds for eating too much of their food and getting fat.
And sue Starbucks/coffee shops for accidentally spilling hot coffee on themselves and getting burned.
And they go to court and are awarded millions in lawsuits for their own stupidity/actions.
I guess companies or the government should have told them not to do it

Yeah I kinda miss the days of rugged individualism. I think as long as the info is out there for people to make their own informed decision then caveat emptor.

 

[Toutou]

This kind of regulation would need to be implemented directly in the headphones. You can't even restrict the volume of wired headphones, because (simplified), different headphone speakers' respond differently to the same level of voltage. There are cheap ones that can be irreversibly damaged by a phone's output and there are large expensive ones that a phone can't even drive properly.
This means you can't really control the volume of analog wired headphones.

In wireless headphones the digital->analog convertor is in the headphones themselves, so it's effectively out of your reach. You can always lower the levels of the digital audio being send, but this would only bring you distortion, as the DAC can simply decide which input signals map to which voltage levels.

So Apple pretty much cannot change this.
This would need to be a law that would force all headphone makers to implement some kind of volume protection. Now this is an interesting engineering challenge, but would be a ******, unnecessary, nanny state-ish law.

 

[Zxxv]

Tell me about it.
Complete nonsense.
Now people sue McDonalds for eating too much of their food and getting fat.
And sue Starbucks/coffee shops for accidentally spilling hot coffee on themselves and getting burned.
And they go to court and are awarded millions in lawsuits for their own stupidity/actions.
I guess companies or the government should have told them not to do it

guess you missed the law where government made it illegal for you to do that
[doublepost=1501922813][/doublepost]

I find it shocking that the limit only applies to wired headphones, not even Apple's wireless headphones are limited. I know it's probably a problem as it's headphone specific, but they really need to find a solution and this limit needs to come into force for all Wireless headphones. I'm not saying you cannot turn it off, but parents need the ability to limit it for their kids.

People get really angry at this, however children do not think about their future as they think they're invincible. I don't consider myself a stupid person, intact I got great grades at school; I have tinnitus however and it's because I was a careless child who played his music full blast. It was cool back then, it's not cool now and it is ruining my life and getting worse... so I really want the ability to have a db limit on wireless headphones like wired.

This is especially needed since Apple got rid of the headphone jack.

you could email tim cook and ask him if he could do it. also apple has a feedback contact section on their website where you can put this. Putting here won't get much of anything unless you're very lucky and someone from apple is reading or if macrumours puts it as a page story. If it were me i'd go straight to the boss as thats the quickest possible route to a solution.

 

[Applejuiced]

guess you missed the law where government made it illegal for you to do that
[doublepost=1501922813][/doublepost]

I guess we all did including the government.
Because the frivolous and crazy lawsuits have not stopped

 

[scaramoosh]

We need the ability to set the limit for Children, when you're young you do not care about your hearing later on in life.

 

[JPack]

We need the ability to set the limit for Children, when you're young you do not care about your hearing later on in life.

Parent Education Programs

 

[scaramoosh]

Parent Education Programs

Well you can have it as loud as you want and deafen yourself, that's no reason to not have the option to limit the db levels for wireless headphones like how we can for wired headphones in the EU.

This is especially needed now since they got rid of the Jack and Apple at the very least can build it into their Wireless headphones.

 

[Videomanmac]

We need the ability to set the limit for Children, when you're young you do not care about your hearing later on in life.

What about the impact of screens on our eyes?

 

[WRXiceman]

This is silly. There are many ways to limit the volume, amongst other things, like educating children.
Why is it always the companies job? We need to also take some responsibility and not rely on other people/businesses to solve our individually perceived problems.

 

[ApfelKuchen]

I find it shocking that the limit only applies to wired headphones, not even Apple's wireless headphones are limited. I know it's probably a problem as it's headphone specific, but they really need to find a solution and this limit needs to come into force for all Wireless headphones. I'm not saying you cannot turn it off, but parents need the ability to limit it for their kids.

People get really angry at this, however children do not think about their future as they think they're invincible. I don't consider myself a stupid person, intact I got great grades at school; I have tinnitus however and it's because I was a careless child who played his music full blast. It was cool back then, it's not cool now and it is ruining my life and getting worse... so I really want the ability to have a db limit on wireless headphones like wired.

This is especially needed since Apple got rid of the headphone jack.

How/where did you learn that the limit does not apply to wireless headphones? Everything I've been able to find on the EU regulation applies to the personal music player, not the headphones - the player must provide the required controls. Considering that the same volume control is used for the internal speaker, wired and wireless headphones...

(I don't have a Bluetooth headset, so I can't test this for myself.)

 

[scaramoosh]

How/where did you learn that the limit does not apply to wireless headphones? Everything I've been able to find on the EU regulation applies to the personal music player, not the headphones - the player must provide the required controls. Considering that the same volume control is used for the internal speaker, wired and wireless headphones...

(I don't have a Bluetooth headset, so I can't test this for myself.)

I have Four Bluetooth Headphones and the AirPods too, one of the four being Beats and I have the MDR1000X, Momentum 2's and the Bose QC35. All of them go to crazy volume levels, way higher than if you use a wired pair. It's obvious they do not have the limit built in and the limit does appear on IOS for wireless too.

Now they all say Made for iPhone pretty much and are integrated in the software... so they should be able to require a db limit for made for iPhone headphones in the future.

I can understand people wanting to turn the limit off, that's up to them and fair enough. However they cannot be any backlash to wanting this ability as an option.

As I said I'm not a stupid person; when I was a kid I didn't care and didn't believe I could die or could do damage to myself with some harmless headphones. It's like your parents saying the TV will damage your eyes... this may not be true, but as a kid you just laugh about it and dismiss these things. I have a good upbringing and was taught about dangers of thing... but you don't always listen and parents aren't there 24/7.
[doublepost=1503133077][/doublepost]

This is silly. There are many ways to limit the volume, amongst other things, like educating children.
Why is it always the companies job? We need to also take some responsibility and not rely on other people/businesses to solve our individually perceived problems.

Parental features are built into everything these days, this is just another one and it's still the parents responsibility to force it on.

Your argument is so stupid, how can we take responsibility without being given the option? It's there for wired, so why can't we have it for wireless?

What is the problem? Are we meant to hold a kids hand every time they want to listen to music now? Maybe we should free up all the porn channels on the TV and not have a pin lock, that way we have to be there every time they watch TV. How about we throw out age laws for drinking and smoking? It should be the parents responsibility to always be there watching their kids right?

Maybe none of us should work and become full time stay at home parents and let the government pay for it?

 

[Zxxv]

So. Did you email Tim Cook and/or fill out the feedback/suggested feature/bug report on apples website or are you still here just shouting into the wind?

 

[AZhappyjack]

I find it shocking that the limit only applies to wired headphones, not even Apple's wireless headphones are limited. I know it's probably a problem as it's headphone specific, but they really need to find a solution and this limit needs to come into force for all Wireless headphones. I'm not saying you cannot turn it off, but parents need the ability to limit it for their kids.

People get really angry at this, however children do not think about their future as they think they're invincible. I don't consider myself a stupid person, intact I got great grades at school; I have tinnitus however and it's because I was a careless child who played his music full blast. It was cool back then, it's not cool now and it is ruining my life and getting worse... so I really want the ability to have a db limit on wireless headphones like wired.

This is especially needed since Apple got rid of the headphone jack.

I totally agree with this. We don't need no steenking personal responsibility. /s

It's the parents job to protect their kids, and to teach their kids to act responsibility. Enough of this "make Apple fix it"... take responsibility for yourself and your family.

 

[willmtaylor]

We need the ability to set the limit for Children, when you're young you do not care about your hearing later on in life.

Settings>General>Restrictions>Volume Limit

It’s not Apple’s responsibility to parent your children, and it’s definitely not the government’s.

 

[JPack]

How/where did you learn that the limit does not apply to wireless headphones? Everything I've been able to find on the EU regulation applies to the personal music player, not the headphones - the player must provide the required controls. Considering that the same volume control is used for the internal speaker, wired and wireless headphones...

(I don't have a Bluetooth headset, so I can't test this for myself.)

Regulation differs from engineering. The EU standard really shows how outdated such regulations are.

Bluetooth headphones have their own amplifier. It doesn't need to obey any volume limit set by the player.
[doublepost=1503164682][/doublepost]

Well you can have it as loud as you want and deafen yourself, that's no reason to not have the option to limit the db levels for wireless headphones like how we can for wired headphones in the EU.

This is especially needed now since they got rid of the Jack and Apple at the very least can build it into their Wireless headphones.

OP, you're barking up the wrong tree.

1. Parental education. This should be your first option.
2. If you fail at parental education, talk to your lawmakers. EU legislation is outdated and applies only to music players and phones. Headphone manufacturers aren't covered. No matter how hard you email Tim Cook, it won't happen.

 

[ApfelKuchen]

Regulation differs from engineering. The EU standard really shows how outdated such regulations are.

Bluetooth headphones have their own amplifier. It doesn't need to obey any volume limit set by the player.

Yes. For that matter, the efficiency/relative loudness of "passive" headphones varies as well. Unless someone comes up with a method of informing the music player just what the DB SPL output (acoustic loudness) of a given pair of headphones is, setting an electrical limit on the output of the music player's headphone amp is a crude method of control.

To be totally accurate and effective, a safety standard of this sort must apply to the headphones as well as the music player. One possibility is to set a ceiling for maximum SPL from the headphones based on a standardized input level (from either analog or digital signal), so that the combination of headphone and amplifier can't exceed safe levels.

Presumably, the EU made certain assumptions about the efficiency (SPL output) of headphones when setting the standard. They likely wouldn't have pegged it to the worst-case scenario (self-powered or highly-efficient passive headphones), because it could have resulted in below-intended-standard performance for typical headphones.

Overall, it's hard to depend on a given manufacturer (like Apple) to do this voluntarily - if consumers decide that Apple's products are too weak, they lose sales to companies that deliver more power. Safety standards, whether from government industry, are the more practical approach.

 

[scaramoosh]

I find it crazy that everyone here is saying it's the parents responsibility...... YES IT IS!!!!!! BUT THERE IS NOTHING PARENTS CAN ****ING DO BECAUSE THERE IS NO OPTION TO LIMIT IT!!!!

FOR **** SAKE!