Then there is this myth he keeps repeating:
There is no such thing as going deaf at 114 dBSPL in two minutes or every concert goer would come back deaf. Even in classical concerts, levels as high as 120+ dBSPL have been measured where people sit. Are we to assume they all lost their hearing? Of course not. The whole point misses our hearing works, what music really is, and psychoacoustics.
As others Jude continues to confuse safety standards for noise to music, not understanding aspects of either. They are completely different things. Here is OSHA (US loudness standards):
Notice that the measurement is with a-weighting. This filters out tons of low frequencies:
Look at the graph in blue. That is a-weighting.
Notice how it completely filters out bass frequencies meaning the safety standards do not worry much about how loud the bass frequencies are. They care how loud mid to high frequencies are. That is the region which causes hearing damage. That jet taking off is creating tons of broadband noise and of course it is hazardous to your hearing.
The situation here and with music is very different. Here is a track I just pulled up to analyze, the famous Chris Jones No Sancturay:
Notice how most of the energy is below 100 Hz. And certainly by 1 kHz. A-weight filtering would knock whopping 40 dB from 20 Hz response!
What this says is that when you turn up this track to 114 dBSPL at bass frequencies, it is considered 114-40 dB = just 74 dB! Indeed that is what the fletcher munson-graphs say about our hearing sensitivity in low frequencies. Your ears are simply not sensitive to bass. Listen to tracks I have posted with deep bass and you can hardly hear them.
All of this is beside the point that we use equalization to boost bass frequencies. The Diana V2 is deficient to the tune of 13 dB from Jude's own measurements. Once we compensate for that, then we are adding 13 dB more to the response to that region, causing it produce a lot more distortion. This distortion doesn't just show up in bass. Once you have enough of it, it bleeds way into higher frequencies, potentially even making the headphone sound bright.
Yes, you don't want to listen too loud. But know that too loud means mid to high frequencies. When I turn up the music way loud, it is never the bass that sounds too loud -- it is the mid to highs. People put massive subs in their rooms with when combined with room gain, can produce incredible amount of bass SPL. Do we see people running away from rooms because of the subs? No. They run away if the sound is too bright, or too loud in higher frequencies.
So yes, take care of your ears. But make sure your eyes and brain are not confused by lay statements like Jude is making to protect the industry he serves. He should have run the 114 dBSPL just as I did. It is not like he had to listen to them.