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.

 

[RealNeat]

This shouldn’t affect your sound quality like air tubes. SYB H.A.R.D. - Headset Anti-Radiation Device – Shield Your Body

This site is knowledgeable and has good products.

 

[Badger]

Research shungite, which can be cheaply purchased on Amazon. You can buy quarter-sized shungite for smart phones and affix them to headphones to protect your head from EMF.

 

[TheDogsDid-It!]

@Badger I was a bit apprehensive to suggest this, so I was glad to see your post. I'm too frequently referred to as weird for my alternative methods for some things, so I stay quiet. I had two necklaces made of it from Etsy recently (beautiful). The reason for my recent purchase was my past success with this stone. Many years ago I purchased a large stone of shungite during one of my frequent yearly stays in Sedona. I bought it for my sauna, but I decided to place it near me while sleeping and the difference was HUGE. And I swear, it relieves pain. I won't travel without it. The shop sold those shungite attachments for phones and maybe next time I will buy some for my Bose headphones I have to wear while on my computer. My dang dogs snore so bad and it drives me crazy, so headphones are necessary if I want to concentrate!

 

[Gila]

to protect your head from EMF.

Show me data that proves this.

How do you guys think waves travel? Do you think the shungite funnels them in like some sort of black hole?
Waves are radiated and they propagate. They continue to propagate until they encounter a discontinuity. Then some radiation is reflected, and some is transmitted. If the propagation medium is capable of dissipating energy, there is an attenuation constant we use to characterize loss. That's it. They don't bend towards some rock that is located away from the radiation source. The waves don't even know that is there until they encounter it.

If you have anything that works, it either works as a reflector or an attenuator. In either case, you only have a small section of incident surface area protected by this item. Basically it's useless. If you want effectiveness, turn your room into a faraday cage and remove sources of radiation.

SYB H.A.R.D. - Headset Anti-Radiation Device

If this does anything at all, it acts as a lowpass filter followed by a buffer. Such high frequency signal content would have been filtered out already before the gain stage in the case of an analog signal. For a digital signal, the headphones will have their own microelectronics with high clock frequencies generating noise. Not really worth it. Note that this only affects high frequency content propagating along the conductors in the wires. It does nothing for external radiation.

 

[TheDogsDid-It!]

@Gila I would be interested in your opinion on the theory that, people with heavy metals are more affected by EMFs than those that don't have a heavy burden of them.

 

[Gila]

@Gila I would be interested in your opinion on the theory that, people with heavy metals are more affected by EMFs than those that don't have a heavy burden of them.

I actually don't have an opinion on that yet. It's been something I've wanted to look into. Recently most of my spare energy has been spent on Peat and reading papers on thyroid/etc. I've been working out my own health problems. Peat has been a lifesaver. Now I'm down to just trying to fix energy metabolism after 9 years of high stress.

 

[TheDogsDid-It!]

@Gila Okay, thank you. I went on a few rounds of heavy metal detox a few years back and did a 24 hour collection test after the last session. I was able to get most out and my NP confirmed I no longer had a heavy metal load. I have a small office with 2 desk-tops and all the necessary equipment to run them. Way back before I did the heavy metal detox, I told my NP I couldn't sit in that room long and wondered why. That was long before I knew anything about EMFs. He thought that was strange and had no comment. The heavy metal tests were performed out of his suspicion for other conditions. Hard to avoid heavy metals, I know, but I do my best, including water filtrations and detox as a lifestyle; but so far, I haven't invested in the expensive EMF protections. I still love my shungite stones, so I'm keeping them around. Even if it would be considered a placebo effect by many. There are scientific papers on their detox abilities (at least in water), and nothing scientifically confirmed effective on EMFs. Placebo effects are pretty powerful, and much of what is powerful is unseen and not 100% possible to scientifically prove or dismiss. Even theories on black holes continues to evolve.