{"id":14934,"date":"2024-10-18T09:04:36","date_gmt":"2024-10-18T09:04:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=14934"},"modified":"2024-10-18T09:23:12","modified_gmt":"2024-10-18T09:23:12","slug":"hate-noisy-restaurants-stick-this-in-your-ear","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=14934","title":{"rendered":"Hate Noisy Restaurants? Stick This in Your Ear."},"content":{"rendered":"
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Booking a table for two at Tao Downtown<\/a>, I hesitated when I got to the box asking whether I had a special request. I did, but I wasn\u2019t sure how it would go down. Would I be the first customer in history to ask for a noisy table?<\/p>\n

This is not a normal ask, but I had my reasons. Recently I\u2019d been trying to find out whether the way to hear and be heard in a dining room filled with booming speakers and screaming diners might be as simple as wearing a pair of earbuds. To put it to the test, I needed something I usually try to avoid: a hellishly loud restaurant.<\/p>\n

As you may have heard, Apple announced last month<\/a> that it would soon introduce new software enabling its AirPods Pro 2 earbuds to act as over-the-counter hearing aids<\/a> for mild to moderate hearing loss, adjustable to your own ears. (You will be able take a simple exam from Apple on your device, or upload the findings of one given by an audiologist.)<\/p>\n

What you may not know is that the AirPods Pro 2 already come with a setting that can turn up the volume on the voices of people you\u2019re talking to and another one that tamps down background noise. Other earbud makers, including Sony, Samsung, Beyerdynamic and Soundcore, also offer functions meant to make conversation easier in noisy places. AirPods outsell them all, though, which is why I wore a pair to Tao and several other Manhattan restaurants known to wreak mayhem on the eardrums.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Over my 12 years as a restaurant critic<\/a>, few problems I wrote about drew as many emails and comments as noise, and no issue came anywhere close to sparking as much white-hot rage. When I admitted that I like loud restaurants<\/a>, up to a point, many readers were angry with me. They were even angrier with restaurants.<\/p>\n

I get it. Long exposures to loud noise can cause hearing damage. Even at less brutal volumes, not being able to hear the other people at the table is maddening. Not being heard \u2014 having to repeat yourself and raise your voice until you sound as if you\u2019re in a screaming match \u2014 is worse. All this is more punishing for people with any amount of hearing loss. Drowning in an angry sea of background noise, most of us finally give in to helplessness. We seethe, silently.<\/p>\n

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Booking a table for two at Tao Downtown, I hesitated when I got to the box asking whether I had a special request. I did, but I wasn\u2019t sure how it would go down. Would I be the first customer in history to ask for a noisy table?This is not a normal ask, but I had my reasons. Recently I\u2019d been trying to find out whether the way to hear and be heard in a dining room filled with booming speakers and screaming diners might be as simple as wearing a pair of earbuds. To put it to the test, I needed something I usually try to avoid: a hellishly loud restaurant.As you may have heard, Apple announced last month that it would soon introduce new software enabling its AirPods Pro 2 earbuds to act as over-the-counter hearing aids for mild to moderate hearing loss, adjustable to your own ears. (You will be able take a simple exam from Apple on your device, or upload the findings of one given by an audiologist.)What you may not know is that the AirPods Pro 2 already come with a setting that can turn up the volume on the voices of people you\u2019re talking to and another one that tamps down background noise. Other earbud makers, including Sony, Samsung, Beyerdynamic and Soundcore, also offer functions meant to make conversation easier in noisy places. AirPods outsell them all, though, which is why I wore a pair to Tao and several other Manhattan restaurants known to wreak mayhem on the eardrums.Over my 12 years as a restaurant critic, few problems I wrote about drew as many emails and comments as noise, and no issue came anywhere close to sparking as much white-hot rage. When I admitted that I like loud restaurants, up to a point, many readers were angry with me. They were even angrier with restaurants.I get it. Long exposures to loud noise can cause hearing damage. Even at less brutal volumes, not being able to hear the other people at the table is maddening. Not being heard \u2014 having to repeat yourself and raise your voice until you sound as if you\u2019re in a screaming match \u2014 is worse. All this is more punishing for people with any amount of hearing loss. Drowning in an angry sea of background noise, most of us finally give in to helplessness. We seethe, silently.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and\u00a0log into\u00a0your Times account, or\u00a0subscribe\u00a0for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?\u00a0Log in.Want all of The Times?\u00a0Subscribe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":14936,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14934","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lifestyle"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14934","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14934"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14934\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14937,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14934\/revisions\/14937"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/14936"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14934"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14934"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14934"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}