Tinnitus at the Cafe Aman

Last night I was mixing the sound for Martha Lewis' Cafe Aman at St. John's Chapel as part of this year's Chichester Festivities.

At the interval a gentleman came up to me and asked if it needed to be so loud - he was complaining that he was over 50 [as am I] and when you get to that age you get various afflictions such as the tinnitus that he was suffering from. So he was telling me to turn it down for the second half or he wouldn't be going back in.

While I do appreciate his discomfort, I spend my professional life working with sound and so would certainly do nothing to damage my own [or others] hearing.

In this case, the sound DID have to be at that level. Any quieter and the out-front sound would be compromised by the level of the on-stage monitors used by the performers, which in the smallish chapel were louder than I would have hoped.

A quick straw poll of some people I knew confirmed that they were not distressed by the sound levels [indeed, they complimented on the quality of the sound] and the stewards had no other complaints.

Our solution...my sound assistant had a pair of noise-reducing earplugs which he lent to the man. [I don't give up my own everpresent personal Etymotic ER-20 plugs - which reduce the sound by 20dB at all frequnecies - for nobody]. A happy customer after the concert.

But it begs the question: would he ask for the lighting to be turned down if he had a sight problem that was exacerbated by strong light. No, he would probably wear tinted glasses. Why is sound any different? I hope he takes up our visit Specsavers and purchase his own set.