Leisure time, time spent after work or school, is gradually increasing. In addition, loud hobbies are gaining popularity as well. At work, people are usually well protected against the effects of loud sounds, and therefore the hearing losses caused by industrial noise are decreasing steadily. However, the occurrence of hearing losses and other hearing disorders due to leisure time noise have created a new problem in the field of hearing conservation. A previous cross-cultural study made on young people's leisure time activities (between Finland and Japan) showed that young people could subjectively estimate sound levels differently, or that the sound levels in Japan are indeed lower. The most popular music leisure time activity was listening music with loudspeakers. Some sound level values are given in the literature, but they are of western origin. Therefore, the sound levels while listening to loudspeakers were measured among Japanese young people, and the results are presented. Participants were Japanese young people with normal hearing. The listening test consisted of two parts: listening to favorite music in two different levels: usual and ideal, and listening to pre-selected samples of 5 different types of music and one voice sample. The listening test was performed in a sound proof room at Tohoku University. The measurement results showed that most of the listeners did not listen to sound levels at harmful levels. However, there are still some who could be exposed to loud music, especially if they take part in other loud leisure time activities as well.
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