Protection From Headphone EMF

[Sebastian B]

Hi all, I'm a serious music producer and audio engineer. I just purchased some high-end headphones that require a significant amount of current to power, and I'm concerned about EMF. Do any of you know of a device that can help counteract this?

 

[Nick]

Hi all, I'm a serious music producer and audio engineer. I just purchased some high-end headphones that require a significant amount of current to power, and I'm concerned about EMF. Do any of you know of a device that can help counteract this?

The safest headphones for distancing the EMF from the brain are air tube headphones but the sound quality is way too bad to use for mixing or music production. You could look into putting a ferrite bead on the cord which may reduce the amount of extra EMF from EMI/dirty electricity that gets to the actual headphones, but if you are doing serious music production and already have a set up that has very little electrical noise then this may not be necessary.

Unfortunately I think mixing with headphones is never going to be totally harmless. Michael Persinger's research showed that some of the physiological effects of the EMF from headphones depends on the sound being played through them. The EMF patterns of certain words played through headphones registered a corresponding reaction in the brain even when decoupled from the sound. So perhaps if the music is good the damage is less.

 

[Sebastian B]

The safest headphones for distancing the EMF from the brain are air tube headphones but the sound quality is way too bad to use for mixing or music production. You could look into putting a ferrite bead on the cord which may reduce the amount of extra EMF from EMI/dirty electricity that gets to the actual headphones, but if you are doing serious music production and already have a set up that has very little electrical noise then this may not be necessary.

Unfortunately I think mixing with headphones is never going to be totally harmless. Michael Persinger's research showed that some of the physiological effects of the EMF from headphones depends on the sound being played through them. The EMF patterns of certain words played through headphones registered a corresponding reaction in the brain even when decoupled from the sound. So perhaps if the music is good the damage is less.

I've never tried air tube headphones, so maybe I'll look into getting a pair. And the music is good—I'm the one producing it, after all.

 

[Nick]

I've never tried air tube headphones, so maybe I'll look into getting a pair. And the music is good—I'm the one producing it, after all.

Don't have high expectations for the air tubes, I have done a fair amount of music production and I can't imagine getting a good mix with the sound quality of the air tube headphones I have and they are all fairly expensive. When I first became aware of the EMF issue I just switched to doing nearly everything over the monitors and checking the mix on headphones for a short amount of time.